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.
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.
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.
Sometimes a competitive high school dance team serving pure 80s gives you the will to live.
Tomioka Dance Club, ladies and gentlemen.
Almost never listen to Western music anymore, but I'm pretty well obsessed with this MV and song. Super super super gorgeous video.
I basically decided to forfeit 2017. It was a despondent blight of fire and tears.
Trying to get things moving forward now. Or just... moving.
Following the solid week of crying grief over Jonghyun I rubbed my eyes lightly, exhausted, awake too long. Got a crazy after-image burst in my left eye that stayed with me for almost two weeks. Accompanied by a continuous headache. Probably a mild posterior vitreous detachment according to the internet. Could've been a stroke or aneurysm finally coming for me... wouldn't know. Still can't think about being out in the world enough to deal with seeing a doctor. I fully appreciate the depth of this foolishness.
Illness makes a fool of me on the regular.
I did some reading. Ready Player One was a miserable shock. I had heard so many good things about it. I was genuinely startled to experience how poor it was. It's just... yeah... it's just not good.
Got through John Green's Turtles All The Way Down with difficulty. Had to take breaks for a few days at a time because I was crying through so much of it. Then Jonghyun happened in the midst of that and I didn't come back to it for a while. It's very good. But extremely challenging to get through for someone who has OCD and mental illness on-par or worse than the protagonist. It was so damn real to my own experience that it could only be a painfully anxious ride. If you ever wanted to know what it's like to have OCD, read Turtles All The Way Down.
Saved The Book of Dust: La Belle Sauvage for the last of my reading stint. Figured it would be the most fun. I was right. Pretty harrowing tale. Pullman is such a beautiful writer. Effortlessly vibrant. His Dark Materials is a very important book series for me so I'm thrilled to have more stories within that universe. Eagerly awaiting the next installments.
Mostly I've been escaping into BTS. Bangtan Sonyeondan. Which is also foolish. I thought my Kpop group fangirling days were behind me. I'd never again follow a group as closely as I followed DBSK.
But BTS... is an irresistible force of nature.
They had impressed me early on with the steady pace and quality of their promotional periods. There was a clear difference between the dozens of other groups I see debut and disappear yearly. Their WINGS era at the end of 2016 really reached a critical mass of attention. Finally recognized with big awards. Then their unprecedented grassroots worldwide fanbase voted them into a Billboard award and all of the press, hype, and collaborations that came out of that launched them into the stratosphere. Completely wild to witness that happening in real-time.
The sheer mass of their content online is simply insane and it's the easiest thing in the world to fall into and luxuriate. Foolish because investing emotionally in such a thing has gotten me into trouble before. Grief-stricken, physically ill, trouble... when things have gone tragic or criminal. Namely DBSK. As I said, I thought I'd never let myself be sucked in again.
But here we are.
I've never seen an entire group be as tightly bonded as these seven are. A lot of circumstances around the creation and development of the group are unique in the industry, so it makes sense. The culture of affection runs deep.
They have a large body of socially/politically conscious material. Much of it written by them. Hard to not appreciate that considering the environment they're in. They have a category of material I refer to as their 'Hey, try not to kill yourself' songs. Lost, So Far Away, Not Today, 2! 3!, YNWA, etc.
My favorite of which is 'Tomorrow'.
I find them to be helpful, personally.
Comforting.
The whole state is on fire.
My hometown is on fire.
My nerves are on fire.
Fucking everything is on fire.
A few years ago I described wind thusly:
Wind is one of those things that I'm obnoxiously sensitive to. It's akin to that damn scratchy tag in your shirt that feels like it's stabbing you every two seconds. Except it's all over my skin and constant. Wind gives me a headache, makes me itchy everywhere, and makes my eyes and nose hurt, even if I'm not outside. Something about the atmosphere changes. Barometric pressure something-or-other. It makes me feel crazy. I want to peel all my skin off. Rip my hair out. Beat my head against a wall. Like... crazy crazy. Wind like this makes it impossible to sleep and that makes me feel especially crazy crazy.
We had a wind event something like that a week ago. I say like that tentatively, because this wind was the most terrifying wind I've ever experienced. It had been going all day, making me cranky, filling my clothing and hair with static, giving me a headache, sucking all the moisture out of my skin, nose, and throat. But in the middle of the night, I was up like normal, doing work on the computer, wondering if I should just turn in for the night because there was no way the power wouldn't go out with the insane speed of the gusts. The whole house was shuddering.
And the power did go out. Came on again a few minutes later, but I left my computer off, assuming it'd go again. And it did. There was sound out in the neighborhood, voices, my folks were talking in their room. Left my room to discover the rest of the house was full of smoke. Neighbors were standing out in the middle of the street with flashlights. Once out in the street we looked to the hills set behind our house.
They were on fire. A ridge of flames surging down towards homes. The whole sky to the west was glowing orange, billowing with smoke. The fire was roaring it was so powerful. Explosions. Power transformers, propane tanks, ammunition stores in residential homes, etc, all blowing up like bombs going off in a war zone.
I pulled up local radio (KSRO) on my phone and listened attentively, shaking, and dumbfounded. We packed absolute necessities, not knowing if our neighborhood would burn. At 4AM we evacuated to the fairgrounds area, the first shelter area people were encouraged to gather. Thousands of people swarming and parking in the dark. Two major hospitals had to be evacuated, patients set up in a makeshift triage center. Families. Pets. Everyone in pajamas. The kind of scene you only see on the news or in disaster movies. Very fucking real.
Through the incredible generosity of wonderful friends, we had safe spaces to rest. Through incredible luck, we got power and internet back at our house within the first couple days. A house still standing.
Woken from a dead sleep a couple days ago to sounds that will haunt me forever, a mandatory evacuation taking place in the neighborhoods just across a highway from us. Very close. Close enough to hear the bullhorn calls, the doors and windows being pounded on, the sirens, the series of car doors slamming in rapid succession... all as if it was happening next door. One of the fires had jumped to the east of us, threatening residential areas in our direction.
That sick adrenaline. I could barely gather my packed bags again I was shaking so hard. But we weren't evacuated. Encouraged to stay put, in fact, to allow the mandatory area to use the escape roads as quickly as possible. Days later, that's still the most active fire in the region, so we're still walking on eggshells around here. But any immediate danger has essentially passed. We might even get some rain or drizzle soon.
Burned/burning areas in my neck of the woods right now.
It has been a hard fucking week.
And compared to a huge amount of my fellow city residents, insanely lucky and relatively easy.
But it's definitely a wild experience to barely leave your house for five years and then flee it halfway across the city ahead of a firestorm that's destroying everything in its path.
Everyone learns faster on fire.
I've had that old Alkaline Trio song stuck in my head this week.
Once the fires cool and the smoke has cleared and the ash stops falling like snow, I'll be trying to volunteer somehow in whatever limited way I can. I have to try. Until then, we're living out of packed bags. Edgy and anxious. Nothing else to be for now. There is some positive amusement in seeing a literal 747 flying low over my backyard while I eat breakfast, about to drop a metric fuck-ton of retardant on the hills nearby. Surreal. Never been so happy to hear multiple planes and helicopters circling all day long. Heroes up there.
Mostly been numb/terrified emotionally. But seeing pictures of the Luther Burbank Center scorched, where I performed for 9 years, and the Round Barn reduced to soot, an unforgettable icon of a hometown I've lived in for 31 years... made me want to shrivel up and cry forever. What happened in Coffey Park is shocking to the senses.
I've always hated wind.
I need a more violent word than hate for my feelings now.
The winter rains in California are proving their worth in full.
Baboon flower in vibrant bloom.
Spearmint. Luxuriant.
Three cheers for that.
31.
I just jumped through my last five birthday entries. All variations of 'I'm a miserable mess, trying to get by, relying on the little things'.
Yup.
Same.
Doing art when I can. Working on Project for Awesome stuff to donate at the end of the year and a similar charity/auction thing in the summer. That'll go to London. I'll probably be posting some of that soon-ish.
I have things to say about reddit's /r/place April Fools shindig from this year.
Also Trixie Mattel's folk album. Future posts.
Day to day, it's getting enough food in me, getting some exercise, chores while listening to podcasts, feeding the birds, reading a bit (currently the Kingkiller Chronicle), keeping up with Kpop posts on my blog and Essential, a little tinkering with my KPOPPY re-coding project, watching a few shows and my youtube subscriptions, art when my fingers are feeling good, and sleep. Rinse. Repeat.
With a steadier constitution I think more on some blunt realities.
For example, I haven't left this city in five years, but I don't know what it looks like. I know my street and the park a bit (PokemonGo), but...
Took a drive with Ma not long ago. Hadn't been in a car in all that time. Incredibly disorienting. She didn't go far. Just beyond the neighborhood. But it was hard for me.
Disorienting... yeah.
Vertigo almost.
Vertiginous is the word.
Not just the movement of the car. But the reality of viewing an area that I've been inside of continuously, but haven't been witness to. My house is a time machine. My life for five years is a blur within it. Everywhere else is changed.
It was overwhelming and hard enough for me to live out in the world when I was running at peak capability. Even as I get better, it's beyond daunting to think about re-entering it when my illness is still so present. It's fair to say the illness was always there, but I had only been white-knuckling it all along. Couldn't ever form a contingency plan. So when my hands metaphorically ripped off, I went flying. And now I don't have anything to reliably hold on with.
Just left looking for my hands.
Not sure if that's even what I should be doing.
White-knuckling is clearly not sustainable.
There's a certain healing comfort to the routine I'm in now. But the awareness that I'm a hair's breadth from doom at any time is always there. If something happened to my folks. If I got sick in a more emergent way. Shit happening in general. deep breath
And always the friends and family who I am utterly isolated from, unable to see or support.
I have a niece I've only really met through screens.
The positive up-tick in things of late considered... that kinda thing fucks me up on the daily.
Gotta take a towel to my cheeks and go watch the birds.
Mysteriously busted my calf muscle a couple weeks ago. Almost thought I had a blood clot or something. Incredibly sore and painful, but didn't know how I had done it. No swelling or bruising while it was excruciating. Magically disappeared after a few days. Some bruising showed up days later. Strange.
Maybe I'm reaching an age where that kind of thing hits harder and more randomly. My body has always been pretty resilient and un-pained. Remarkably so with 10 years of ballet, including pointe. Or un-remarkably? Hard to say.
Little things.
An American Gods TV series started on Starz. First two episodes were pretty fantastic. As much as the penultimate plotline in the book was difficult for me for personal reasons, the mythology referenced is a delight. My favorite reading material growing up. Greek, Norse, Egyptian, a multitude of others. Significantly responsible for my de-conversion from Christianity and arrival at agnostic atheism. Pure fun to see these characters brought to life on screen. Done very well too. Not for the prudish or faint of heart to watch, but worth it so far.
Also watching the new season of Produce101 in the Kpop realm. All boys this time. We're calling it Broduce101. The first big cut brought it from 101 to 60. I lost 4 dudes I was checking for in it. About 15 others I'm still rooting for. Mnet is sticking to the season 1 format pretty closely, which I'm pleased about.
On the note of competition shows, spoilery RuPaul's Drag Race update after the cut.
But first, a relevant Saturday Night Live sketch that just aired:
I didn't make art for the Project for Awesome this year. I'm still sitting on a good idea, but I'll be saving it for next year to give myself more time.
The main reason I never got to it... or really anything else... politics.
I have strong feelings about augmented reality being the standard of the future.
It seems inevitable to me that a digital or virtual reality will interface with reality reality more and more.
And I like it.
There is an issue of access for now, the requirement of a device to participate.
But the potential is what I find inspiring.
During the recent ugly month I started reading Harry Potter again. A distraction from intermittent panics. When PokeGo started taking over in the form of strangers meeting, in odd places, at odd hours, to participate in a world that would normally be hidden... all I could think of was how Harry Potter begins. With strangers, part of a normally secret world, congregating at street corners, landmarks, parks, and community centers, to communicate, discuss, and celebrate their apparent freedom from a terrorizing maniac.
There will always be people who will take wonderful things and use them to cause harm, as is and will be the case with Go.
But fuck 'em.
The positivity, the cooperation, the sun and exercise and enthusiastic mutual interest shared by many... seems like that's exactly what we need right now.
I woke to the fresh news of the Bastille Day horror in Nice.
If we will have atrocities like these as a new normal in the west.
I hope we can have a new normal of a positively augmented community.
Christina Grimmie was shot dead by some lunatic after her concert on June 10th. In front of her brother. I didn't follow her closely, but I follow and participate in a wide range of Youtube channels/communities. And I felt ill.
Two days later Pulse happened. 49 people killed and many wounded while having a great time at a gay club in Orlando. During Pride month. And that made me flee from news because I was trying to avoid a panic attack. But caught enough of a news blurb about the horror of first responders coming on the scene to the eerie sound of the victims cell phones ringing together as their loved ones desperately tried to find out if they were okay.
And that triggered some bad panics, which meant the typical of little eating, no sleeping, black hole of pain in the chest for days.
In the midst of this JYJ's Yoochun was accused of sexually assaulting a woman.
Shock and dismay.
Then another accuser and another and another and another and...
We're at 5 or 6 now, spanning over the last couple years. Looks like a pattern. TRIGGER WARNING. They all worked at adult entertainment bars, he lured them into a bathroom 'so they could talk', locked the door, and assaulted/raped them, except for one (the 5th) who came forward with the same story, but that she fought back so hard he let her go eventually. /TW
The news reporting on this case has been totally ridiculous and irresponsible mind you. Lots of misinformation and conflicting reports. The investigation is ongoing. Suffice it to say here that I think he won't be charged with anything, but I side with the victims.
Already ailing from the Orlando panic attacks, this properly drained the life out of me.
Then Anton Yelchin was killed by his own car in a terrible freak accident. He is/was my favorite part of the new Star Trek reboots. Like I would literally tune in if the first movie was airing on TV just for his parts then watch something else. By all indications was an extremely talented young actor with huge potential and adored by everyone he worked with. Seemed like a real genuine fellow.
Then the significant terror attacks that made news here. Turkey, Afghanistan, Bangladesh... all the escalation during Ramadan and Eid.
And Brexit.
And nutcase Trump.
And Clinton being exonerated despite so much shit and apparently Chelsea Manning recently attempted suicide.
Then Alton Sterling and Philando Castile in rapid succession...
And I barely want to look at the fire fight, sniper fire, fucking whatever is happening in Dallas after the protests right now. 5 officers killed.
...
None of these things are equivalent, of course. Each their own kind of horror and nightmare.
I kept wanting to write something, but felt I needed to wait for my own health until there was some kind of reprieve... which never came.
Purely selfish grief. I'm in no line of fire or blast radius or losing family members or getting assaulted. But I feel a little bit like I did after 9/11. Numb and anxious trying to keep it together with that footage on TV in class all day every day during the week. I remember taking a shower that next weekend and just falling apart. Exhausted tears.
Feel like that right now. Just a little bit. Smaller scale. A similar kind of emotional exhaustion.
Life is so good, generally speaking. The world is on average a much kinder, freer, less-violent, and less painful place to be alive in right now. And my mostly gentle privileged tiny slice of that is vastly better than it is for many.
I suppose it's just the hyper-connectedness of information, which amplifies feelings of helplessness and frustration when there's so little I could possibly do.
Probably stupidly shallow, but Iceland's performance at the Euros was this itty bitty ball of joy through all this. Thanks, Iceland.
Inhale. Exhale.
I'll have to face a very different kind of JYJ music at some point here.
There's just this sickening limbo of not knowing wtf is going on. Jaejoong has the advantage of military isolation. Junsu is in the middle of his concert tour and very clearly determined to give 1000% to audiences that don't want to dwell on the horror of his bandmate's alleged behavior.
But there's this fear that if Yoochun is completely let off that they'll still promote with him.
They shouldn't. Cut ties. Protect themselves if they have nothing like this to hide.
But what an awful position to put them in. After everything they've been through.
After all the fans did to support them.
Happened to see these two mourning doves gettin' it on in the backyard a few weeks ago. Ha! Get a room!
We're gearing up for a garden. Hadn't spent much time out with the birds through the wet winter. A few days ago I noticed one of the Scrub Jays has a bum wing.
Hanging awkwardly. And the poor thing isn't able to fly very well. It was extremely windy the last couple days and I didn't see him. Hopefully get out tomorrow to see if he's around/better.
D:
Took me forever to crack open the Nvidia Shield Tablet replacement after the recall. Just kept putting it off. Then I had all the Windows 10 troubles and didn't want to deal with it. I was planning on rooting it so I could format my SD as internal storage and do all that. It was daunting, so I procrastinated.
But then there was a huge update around the new year, which integrated everything I would have wanted to do into the Nvidia... no need to root. So that spurred me to get the replacement going.
I've been using it since and it's perfect in every way for my needs. That update freed up an enormous amount of space and made the SD formatting super streamlined and easy. Woo!
I expected the old one to shut off much sooner than it did. It continued to work for like three months until it bricked itself. Thus ended the life of my first tablet. I gave it a ceremonial burial in the 'ship this tablet carefully so it doesn't blow up in transport' box that Nvidia provided.
Bye, tablet! I barely knew ye!
ONE BERNIE, PLEASE!
The election was already ridiculous, but things have really escalated into madness over the last month. The DNC is totally effed. The fraud, the rigging, the voting problems... it's all gross.
I imagine it will only get worse closer to the convention. I'm appalled by how Clinton is representing herself through all this.
It's going to be Hillary vs. Trump and that's...
... ugh...
... uuuugggghhhhh...
We need election reform, news media reform, all the reform. Good god. It's bad.
I'd like to think Hillary can get a landslide over Trump.
I'm genuinely paranoid this could go very differently.
UUUUGGGGGHHHHHHHH.
In happier and vastly more entertaining news, the end of the Premier League season was an absolute delight.
Leicester won by 10 points. No one was touching them.
But the runner-up positions were still in tight contention up to the end. Tottenham, having their best season... ever, could have pulled off 2nd and finished above Arsenal for the first time in 20 years. The rivalry runs so deep that this had Arsenal fans shitting themselves. But then Tottenham choked in their last few games allowing us to gain on them.
It came down to the last game of the season.
Arsenal played Aston Villa (relegated)
Tottenham played Newcastle (relegated)
These games were played simultaneously. Tottenham only needed a draw to hold 2nd.
We had to win.
And beautiful beautiful Newcastle, playing purely for the yucks, absolutely destroyed Tottenham. They even went down to 10 men... and still destroyed Tottenham. 5 - 1.
Each time they scored, Arsenal fans went absolutely nuts, getting the results through social media.
And Arsenal won. 4 - 0.
Thereby, Arsenal popped above Tottenham into 2nd and the 21st St. Totteringham's Day in a row was celebrated like we'd won the damn league ourselves.
IT'S HAPPENED AGAIN! IT'S HAPPENED AGAAAAAIIIIINNNN! TOTTENHAM HOTSPUR, IT'S HAPPENED AGGAAAAAAIIIIIIIINNNNNN!
Being an American who really doesn't care all that much about clubs and their local rivalries...
This was just far too comical to not enjoy in every way.
The narrative. THE NARRATIVE.
This season was so damn strange anyway. Very amusing.
It'll be interesting to see if it gets crazier next season, or if things get back to something more normal.
Euros over the summer though! That'll be fun.
I'm determined to stay relaxed and detached this time so I don't have a total anxiety meltdown like I had during Germany's run for the World Cup.
A gift from my Aunt a long time ago. A Lily of the Valley teacup for May.
It's been a minute.
Say you stumble in the middle of the night and fall into a well.
And whoooooshcrunch there you are broken at the bottom.
And you shred your hands in the effort to climb your way out.
And it takes a very long time.
It's not until you can look back into the well in full daylight that you realize just how deep it was.
You can't fathom how you were ever able to make it out.
I know I'll have setbacks. I recognize I'll stumble again. The truth is it doesn't always get better. Sometimes it gets vastly worse. All you can do is try to prepare yourself for when it gets bad so you can get better on the other side.
I've had this feeling before. Especially when I've recalled school, mostly 7th through 12th grade, I wonder how I did it. Getting very little sleep at night from anxiety. Early morning. Every day. Overwhelmed by too many people and too much noise and chronic stress and illness and no relief. Objectively, I know I got through it by being a suicidal zombie, which isn't any way to be. But I can look back and awe that I didn't blow my brains out every day. I got to the other side.
Here I am on the other side again.
For the last few months I have noticed, in small ways and big, that my sensory experience is vastly different than it was for roughly the last four years. My 'normal' during that time was to have a panic attack if I felt too cold or too hot or needed to burp or felt hungry or full or from watching a movie or for seemingly no reason at all.
My nervous system was on a hair-trigger for every tiny little bit of stimulation. And every response was a grenade going off in my ribcage, ripping my limbs from my body, sending me in a terrorized scramble to collect them... even though they were right there where they should be, attached to me just fine.
But surely they couldn't be when I felt like I'd been blown apart.
I know things about myself now. I know that when I'm totally fucked up and in a panicked state, but trying to hold it together, my right arm twitches involuntarily. My elbow swings away from my body, pulsing by my side. I know that the smaller anxious moments make me yawn compulsively and grip and massage my collarbones and neck without thinking about it.
I yawn a lot still.
But the grenades are gone.
So now I can eat full meals. And have seconds!
And I can watch an icky scene in Orphan Black and laugh through it.
I can go through the majority of my days feeling stable. The steadiness is so palpable. It's remarkable.
It's so distinct that I know even a year ago I was nowhere near this.
I turn 30 in a week and I'm a total failure by normal people standards.
But hey, for the first time in four years, I can eat seconds!
Win!
Got hired for a temporary little job creating questions for a trivia app... the Kpop section. It pays to be knowledgeable about an obscure niche of a niche bit of pop culture.
Got asked to contribute to a tumblr typography project for Hank Green Out of Context, which will probably be posted within the week. Mine will certainly be the least competent of the bunch, in the typographical sense. It's not something I've studied/practiced. But I did a playful Illuminated Manuscript dealio, which is kind of hilariously stupid.
JUNSU IS MAKING ONE MORE ALBUM BEFORE ENLISTMENT.
Bless goddess Hani for dating him so he would delay military to be with his lady-love for a little while longer. I mostly just want to marry her myself. I usually don't take much interest in female idols, but she's the anti-idol and I love her dearly.
EXID has a similar rapport to what DBSK had back in the day. Their company is less strict though. Would never have gotten a drunken, spastic, performance like this from an SM group.
Hani is fucking precious.
And Solji's voice is fierce af.
Arsenal's season utterly fell apart for the 2nd half of the season. Lol. And Leicester have had this fairytale, planets aligning, prophecy fulfillment of a prophecy that never was. And while most everyone hates little Leicester now, Arsenal fans are rooting for them to beat Tottenham... because Tottenham. If Chelsea beats them tomorrow, I believe it becomes impossible for them to beat Leicester for the league.
Özil was on an insane roll during the first half of the season. Assist-machine is an understatement. Around the holidays I thought of doing this Norman Rockwell mash-up with the Gunners. His PR people started a little contest for memes/comics/sketches related to his assist record, so I figured I participate with the idea. Not concerned with the contest really, I just think it's cool of him/his people to do fun things like that.
Kicked it out rather rapidly to preserve my fingers, so it looks sloppy as all get-out to me. Lol.
Been a wild season. Leiscester is still top. Arsenal just beat them in a massive game over the weekend... with a goal assisted by Mesut to Welbeck in literally the last minute of the game.
Near pissed myself.
Politics
I've always participated in terms of researching and voting, but also felt it's all pretty bullshit-y and helpless. For the first time in my life I get to vote for someone I sincerely want to be the president. Not a lesser of evils or whatever. My ideals have alignment with an actual candidate... remarkable!
Bernie, of course.
Bernie Bernie Bernie.
There was a time when I 'supported' Hillary, because it seemed likely she would run in the future and she would have aligned a lot closer than anyone else I had seen. And even now, if it got to be her as the nominee, I would feel relatively comfortable in voting for her.
Then she started campaigning in earnest. And against Bernie. And it all turned to shit.
At this point it feels like a betrayal. With the absolute clusterfuck happening on the Republican side there was this extraordinary golden opportunity for the Democrats to show a positive, intelligent, and united front. They started out that way... a bit. But then instead of steadily and logically expressing the differences between the Dems and their reasons for their platforms, Hillary made an about-face. She started eating her own. Attacked the other guys by straw-manning and misrepresenting their positions on the major issues and disparaging them.
Especially now that it's just her and Bernie, she does this constantly, which is especially ridiculous because Bernie's record is rock solid. And when Bernie accurately refers to her inconsistent record she gets hyper-defensive, calling it an attack, sexism, harassment, and "artful smear".
WTF.
And the polls show I'm not the only one WTF-ing. It's clear that the group of people voting for her are people unfamiliar with her record, leaning on name recognition and assuming everything she says is true.
She's overwhelmingly distrusted by young people. I'm convinced it's because young people are using the internet, researching her record, seeing videos like this one where we hear her own words out of her own mouth... and her claims of consistency become instantly hollow and dishonest.
I agree with Bernie here. It's not exactly a problem that she has changed her mind on things, but it's the way she now claims consistency during debates. She knows her constituency won't check what she says. So she just states that she has always had the position she currently has even though that's bullshit.
I'm so angry about this I don't want to vote for her at all. Even if she's the nominee over Bernie.
I'd rather vote for Jill Stein or write in Bernie. It's just so fucking aggravating that she had the opportunity to be honest, forthright, and strong... she would have been an easy shoo-in. But she or her people thought it would make her look stronger to bullshit and attack the other Democrats.
Utter fuck-up as I see it.
At any rate, BERNIE SANDERS FOR PRESIDENT.
Scalia died over the weekend. Holy shit. The Republicans are crapping their pants and warning Obama against replacing him during an election year. That he shouldn't even bother and let the 'American people' choose based on who becomes the President. Lunatics. We voted for Obama twice. He's got a year left. That's his responsibility and we gave it to him.
I sincerely think the Republicans have lost their damn minds. I've watched every debate on both sides. It's a fucking circus over there. I'd be horrified if I was a Republican to see that total shit-show. It's a farce.
Also been watching the Flint crisis, which is heinous beyond words.
I was raised on Star Trek. Measure of a Man. The Drumhead. Who Watches the Watchers.
I can't help but crave utopian ideals. How can there ever be change if we are constantly leaning backwards into stagnation and the status quo?
JYJ
The variety show hilarity they recorded right before Jaejoong enlisted will be coming out soon. Really takes me back to the old days seeing the clips/highlights. Laughter and tears all the way through.
Yoochun released a mini-album out of frickin' nowhere. We kinda knew he had recorded something before enlistment, but nothing had been said about it. Then BAM... mini.
Jaejoong released his full album just a few days ago, which we were expecting. Another lovely rock album, more diverse than WWW, but less heavy.
My favorite track is Run Away, largely because it's just so different for him. Really ethereal. And so much English! Unusual.
Junsu Dracula'd the hell out of Dracula for the 2nd run. Ripping his throat apart in the process, like ya do.
He'll have a small Japanese tour in the Spring. I'm guessing he'll enlist sometime in the Summer.
It poured rain at times over the last couple days. Come at me, El Niño! Above: Refreshed the doodle I did in February '14. Now available for purchase. Working on so many things that I've just gotten to completion... took a bit of a break to make a metric fuckton of Ikea furniture for the family office/room. And to watch how my hand does. I procrastinated too long on the Project for Awesome Art Perks. Did a ton of long-term preparation since last year, but was in such a psychological funk this year that I couldn't find the motivation until really late. Got it done though. I'll cover that in the next post. Anyway, got a couple swollen spots on my fingers, but only slight, and I've wrapped/taped them so diligently from the start that I think I've prevented a full-blown episode. Woo! Means I'll be able to keep working on things. Once the furniture situation is handled I'll focus on end-of-the-year Kpop stuff. The annual re-coding Kpoppy.com, this time with the new Bootstrap, finalizing my 2015 Best Of playlist, and getting started on a History of Kpop piece I've had in my head for a while... aiming to finish it sometime next year. Also a couple of commissions to crank out before the New Year. Fun stuff. Arsenal was having a nice start to the season. Mesut has been on fire. Broke a record for assists in consecutive games. And a few goals to boot. Really rough November for the team though. Got hit with the curse of injuries again. Almost the entire starting 11 with knocks. Mes is the last man standing. Lol. *Knocks wood* Been a weird season. Leicester kicking ass and Chelsea in an epic downward spiral of failure, both quite delightful to witness.
Jae and Chun serving well in the military. I'm more comfortable with all that now. Junsu released a mini-album (awesome), just finished a tour with it (awesomer), will feature at the upcoming Epik High concert (even awesomer), will have 3 days of his Musical/Ballad concert to end the year (awesomest), then will have a 2nd run of Dracula early next year (awesome x infinity), and probably wind down around then to start his service. We'll see. Jaejoong will have his pre-enlistment album out in February. Also the 'JYJ Bill' passed, which is attempting to make blacklistings of that nature punishable by law. Many folks celebrated that they'd be able to be on TV again. But those who are better informed know that it mainly just reiterates and confirms the current situation as illegal and corrupt, but you can't force broadcasters to have JYJ on TV. They'll just continue to make arbitrary/creative excuses that they can't get in trouble for... and the exile will remain. It's nice to have it out there though. On principle. And that it's named after them.
PSY had his first proper comeback after Gangnam Style.
Took a screencap when I first watched it. 328 views. Just checked and it's currently 25 million views. In 4 days. Ridiculous. Lmao. I prefer Napal Baji, which is just shy of 7 million currently. Been looking forward to what he might do for a long while. In the lead-up to the album he announced the collabs, one of which was Junsu. Nearly peed myself from sheer glee. Their track turned out to be my favorite on the album. It's a lovely tribute to the late Shin Hae Chul. And Junsu sings the hell out of it. His tone is great for it--both emotional and bright. It's called 'Dream'. Touching lyrics. Mad sleepy. Off to bed.
It means rain! And double rainbows! And weird glowy cloudy skies!
Looked quite unreal for a while. A shame my crappy digital camera doesn't do such things justice.
It rained through most of the day which was delightful. Petrichor likewhoa.
Played around with the Paper Weavings Art Assignment. Had this stack of old origami-style paper with metallic gold on its colored side. Normal picture on the left. The weaving posted in a sunny window on the right. Neato.
More accurate representation of the shiny gold paper on the left and what the back of the weaving looks like on the right. I dunno... I think the back might be the best part. Lol.
Currently preparing some cleaned up versions of older work so they're print-ready.
Also currently on the Bernie Sanders hype train. Choo choo.
Also enjoying all the super hero/comic book shows coming back. 2nd episode of Arrow was killer. Debating whether I can handle another season of Daredevil on Netflix violence-wise. Jessica Jones as well. Super Girl looks like it could be awesome or terrible.
Also JUNSU TEASER!
APOCALYPTIC AF!
Looks like the imagery is inspired from Revelation 9.
I'm down! So excited.
Sora has this awkward tail feather that was probably supposed to molt off like normal, but has been there for almost a month. Dead grey and thrashed a bit... jutting out oddly. Doesn't seem to be messing up her flight or anything, but I'm a wee bit concerned. Shake ya tail feather, girl!
Also DBSK/JYJ fandom crapped its pants over the last couple weeks due to Jaejoong and Yunho meeting in public. Amicably. Meltdowns. Meltdowns everywhere.
Always lots of pretty sunrises and sunsets this time of the year.
It took a couple weeks, but the computer situation is pretty golden at the moment.
Got a new much-needed mouse and pair of headphones.
Got Windows happily running and updated. And I embraced the opportunity to dump a lot of old files and re-organize/clean up my filing system. All drivers working. All programs installed nicely. Cleaned out old archives in the external hard drive and backed up the currently awesome state of the computer. Still going to take a while to get all my fonts, workspace, and tool presets loaded in for Photoshop and that sort of thing. But that happens organically anyway. Again, taking the opportunity to get everything refreshed.
And NOW I can get back to work. YUSSSS.
Bootstrap 4 is out in beta, so I'll slowly be re-coding Kpoppy with some of that new stuff. Cool.
Also helping out the This Week in Kpop guys with their MV posting site, which is very similar to what I do on the blog attached to Kpoppy. Always enjoy helping Kpop-related community efforts. Get to learn stuff and have a routine.
Its been crazy hot again, so I've had to delay painting, but I want to start hammering some things out this coming week. I'm determined to not be pressured on the P4A work this time around.
And FINALLY I'll get to transitioning to the replacement tablet now that the computer crashing trauma is less vivid. Yay.
Both Jaejoong and Yoochun are now serving in the military. A slew of guys entering soon. 4/5 DBSK guys will be serving within a couple months with Changmin going early. Hyukjae too. Mind-eff. Trying to detach myself now that I've become aware how much anxiety it's giving me. Gotta let some of that go... and keep my eyes on my own paper. I don't want to be so emotionally invested in folks across the world that I'm sickened by the thought of what they're dealing with. Not healthy for me. Overactive empathy... hurting myself with it. Not cool. Awareness is one thing. Panic attacks at every bit of news is another.
And LITERALLY keep my eyes on my own paper for some drawings. Much more driven to doodle now with the computer madness out of the way.
During the file re-organizing I came across some old art stuff I did for various projects. Like these apples from a quick html class assignment.
After a remarkably pleasant phone conversation with Dell tech support I received a Windows 7 installation disc in two days. Thank you, Dell support gentleman with a distinctly South Asian name and distinctly South Asian accent. You are my hero.
The last couple of days have been the slow addition of all my drivers and software and various programs. Sloooooow. Trying to not do more than a few installations in between restarts. Not even going to think about loading in all my backed-up files until things are settled.
About those updates...
There were many in the first couple days. Large lists of available Windows updates. And I diligently made my way through them.
Last night, after two days of stable Windows 7 and adding programs and successfully getting through the 150+ updates, there was one update still to go.
Just one.
One that would only kick in along with a shutdown.
But this one update made me paranoid because it looked frighteningly like another single update with which I had recent experience. When I had rolled back from Windows 10 and was scrambling to deal with the incessant freezes and finally got enough up-time to fully backup everything, there was one Windows update.
Just one.
And I had two choices:
(1) Attempt a system restore back to a time before I upgraded to Windows 10
(2) Get this one Windows update so it isn't in the queue and THEN system restore
I made the wrong decision. I should have just done the restore while I could. But I was exhausted and my brain was fried from a week of computer failure madness. So I took the update + shutdown option, ready to do the restore when I turned the computer back on.
And that's when the computer stopped being capable of loading Windows at all. It would get to the Windows animation screen and freeze. Twice. Five times. A dozen.
Hence the necessity to have the conversation with the South Asian gentleman to get the installation disc.
Fast forward to last night. That one update. Could it be the same? Will this Windows update permanently crash Windows again?
Yes. The answer is yes.
I did the update + shutdown.
When I turned on the computer today, it froze at the Windows startup animation.
And did the same when I tried again.
To say I saw red would be a massive understatement.
But luckily the recent use of the installation disc gave me the option to do a system restore. The most recent boot failed. Same freeze. So I went back one more boot.
SUCCESS!
Everything is happy again. I've added a few more little things. Restarted successfully a couple times. All happy.
Except for those 99 updates available mocking me from the control panel 'cause I'm UNDERSTANDABLY PARANOID that the Windows crashing Windows update is in there and it will shove the knife in a little harder... and twist.
Just going to plan to get a few happy boots in before I take on those updates. And be prepared to system restore again... now that I am a well-experienced master of the system restore.
