Staring out a window...

It rained and rained.

I stared out my window for ages watching it come down today, crying.

This time last year, the hills around our house were a blackened smoking ruin.

There was still ash and burnt pinecones in the yard, leaves like bubbled carbon.

Exhaustion from fleeing our house, unable to sleep for days had me weak all over, chest in a vice of fear.

Wildfires continued to rage and my evacuation bags remained firmly packed for two more months. It would still be weeks before we got any precipitation.

Glass.

The year before we had no power for almost a month, windstorms constantly screaming through, and an inferno to the north doubling in size every white-knuckle night.

Kincade.

The year before we would soon be drowning in the smoke from the horror in Paradise.

Camp.

The year before, we were shell-shocked after a miles-long blowtorch raced over our city in a matter of a few hours. Totally unprepared. There wasn't even a certain death toll yet.

Tubbs.

Other areas of California have had that kind of misery again this year.

But we got a reprieve. Cooler temperatures. Unusual humidity.

The scariest stretch was a thunderstorm in early September that had everyone on edge and on the lookout for dry lightning. But it rained just enough in some areas that nothing got too out of control.

Even as I write this I don't want to jinx it. Even though the rain felt like winter already arrived today. Even though the forecast is for more over the next week.

It's almost too much to hope we made it through. You can't afford to hope.

But I did stare out my window and cry.

The ground is wet and everyone I know and love is fully vaccinated if they can be. 

Gotta take what you can get.

Let it soak in deep.

35.

Clinging to the pendulum...

A few days of relative peace and 'okayness' pass.

Then it's a few days of total sadness and misery.

Back to okay for a few days.

Back to gloom for a few days.

Mentioning an oxygen mask in that previous post seems like a dark joke now.
Would not recommend having contamination-related OCD during a global pandemic. 0/10

Not a good time.

But when you've been a hermit for eight years... quarantine doesn't change much.
Sewing masks some. Binging Netflix some. Spending too much time on Reddit. Despairing about politics. Working on long-running projects.

Finally got around to watching the last Star Wars and Frozen 2 yesterday. Back-to-back. Weirdly felt like I was watching the same movie twice. Didn't think that would happen with those two franchises, but I guess that's the hero's journey for you.

A few days past my 34th ding. Mid-thirties, huh.

Mm.

Hindsight is 2020...

02022020

Pretty.

Someone sent me a message of encouragement on reddit a few weeks ago along with the advice:

"Don't set yourself on fire to keep someone else warm."

 I've been told similar things at other times in my life, by a variety of people. For whatever reason, it never registered as much as it did this time.

Trying to make that the focus this year.

You have to put the oxygen mask over your own face first before you help others with theirs.

Working on it.

15 months later...

Time passes...

Missed my last ding entirely. Sorry, 32. Here we are at 33.
I considered 2017 a bust.
2018 was not. But it was challenging.

It makes sense that I stopped making time to post in February of last year. It's when I became a mod of the K-Pop subreddit. I had only applied to help with banners and light moderation, but due to a number of circumstances, ended up being one of only a few primary moderators for a full year until we recently got some more in.

Modding a sub like that... holy shit, it's a lot of work. And stressful.

On top of that, the biggest criminal scandal ever in K-Pop, broke this February. We've been covering it with painstaking diligence ever since. And some of the reporting is brutally difficult to read.

I am very much aware that between this stuff and KPOPPY and EssentialKpop, I have basically taken on more than a full day job's worth of work... as a volunteer. It has given me a lot of purpose and satisfaction as I overcome challenges or problems, but I'm definitely still sick and not very functional otherwise. Been a weird year.

The rest of my time is spent with politics, mostly in the socialism/breadtube spheres. It's somehow both depressing and comforting. Depressing how far we are from sanity, especially with establishment Democrats hell-bent on losing forever. Comforting for the reminder that there are people out there who care and haven't been made completely batshit by mainstream media. The stupid, but informed, humor of stuff like ChapTrapHouse is cathartic.

It has to be a progressive in 2020. We need Bernie. Warren or Gabbard are the only other acceptable choices.

Still finding escape in BTS. Doing more and more amazing things all the time. They just performed, and won, at the Billboard Music Awards and started a world stadium tour. Still blowing my mind to have watched them debut as underdog nobodies and get to where they are now. Nuts!



Honestly, not too hard to understand when you see how close they are still. That affection between them stronger than ever, even though some of them have lived together for like 8... 9 years? Good god. Fun dudes. They're like the human embodiment of every team-building exercise.

Anyway, not much substance here. Just affirming my existence.

The Orville is still awesome.
Star Trek Discovery finally started to feel a little like Star Trek at some point in the 2nd season. Probably when Spock showed up. Still kind of a slog.

Goals this year are to make a healthy work/life schedule, update KPOPPY, and paint a little. One finished art project. I've barely done anything for ages, other than for the K-Pop subreddit.

Also want to plant some pentas for the hummingbirds.

Yep.