this was a week without a real "rest day". i'm shit at taking breaks, but the last week of the year is always...meh. the dark side of finally figuring out what you wanna do with your life: being busy all the time.

• 🌦️ good balance of sun, rain, and wind this week. definitely not winter weather, though
• 🐈 the outdoor food bowls have brought in a new stray. his name is Bobby. he has a big head and a soft meow.
• 🍰 i don't celebrate xmas, but i did eat a lot of cake. cake for breakfast and lunch for days after.
• 🥤i'm adding lemon to my water, again. i'm, also, boiling all my drinking water 'cause i'm suspicious, and it helps me track how much water i'm drinking each day.
• 💊 i've been on my new meds long enough to have an opinion: s'alrght. i'm not crashing, so they're probably working.

i've started painting again, this time with acrylics. i bought all the stuff for acrylic painting back in 2022, i think; but, i kept fighting myself about it, wanting to practice every material i had.

lo and behold, this painting is one of the best things i've ever made. should've started with acrylics instead of watercolour.

the painting is a gift for a friend. the winter solstice gave me a deadline along with the cake. turns out, painting with a specific person in mind helps a lot with staying motivated.

• "25 hopes for 2025"
• "2025 theme word"
• "retro-summary"

• gave up on a table-top-stand i built to lift my midi-keyboard above my computer-keyboard. dual-keyboard action.

  the wrists were not feeling it, though. both keyboards are just on my desk now. no mat; no platforms.

• got my new puzzle in the mail: Gustav Klimt's "The Virgin". the cardboard backing is picked out; just need to get some glue (i use Mod Podge, satin-finish).

i haven't backed up my desktop in months, because i like to live dangerously. then, someone on my mastodon feed posted about their critical drive failure, and i got hella anxious, right-quick. queue an entire week of setbacks just to settle on basic terminal commands.

after days of reading on what i was "technically" trying to do, i decided on FreeFileSync for the archival stuff (documents, music, games, etc). put the system backup off til next week. everything else can be reinstalled.

my 5-terabyte drive is now my main archive. long-term, i'd like to get a couple more 5-6 terabyte drives to fully clone the drive and use smaller SSDs for the system backups and self-hosting.

keyboard layout

i'm switching to a Colemak layout, using more keyboard shortcuts ("backspace" on "caps lock" s'been a big deal for me), and whatever else balances the strain between my hands, like navigating without the mouse more.

this has been more of a fan-fiction and manga year, for sure. just like my teens. but, i'm determined to finish ONE published, mostly-text book: "The Sunflower Cast a Spell To Save Us From The Void" (2021. Jackie Wang)

at time of writing: this is totally inspiring me with my own work. a real prose-poetry fusion. though it's missing the narrative bite that i got from stuff like Bliss Montage (2022. Ling Ma) or Afterland (2017. Mai Der Vang), i'm enjoying the flow.

edit: happy new year! i didn't finish it. here's some quotes

"I've always been without country. Without planet."

"The threat of death calms me."

"By making myself visible I remove the anxiety of being found."

"Meaning collapsed into a quality of sound."

"I want a room just to sit in and contemplate what you are saying"

"All over the world young girls were befriending creatures and trees and constructing fantasy worlds of reciprocated love."

as usual, i use up my Kanopy credits at the very end of the month. ah, well.

• Little Forest (2018. korean version). this. is. my. VIBE. it's basically Stardew Valley with extra food-porn and family-drama. plus, the friendships (including one friend-crush, of course) are mint-gold.
• Wildcat (2023). i don't "stan" anyone, but i do love most things Ethan Hawke creatively contributes to. Maya Hawke, his kid, is really standing out as an actor, herself. he directed/produced, and she starred/produced. it's about the writer Mary Flannery O'Connor, who (going by this film) wrote some intense short stories that i wanna get into.
• Chant D'Amour (1950). capital-H "homoerotic". also, very in-your-face political, as it should be. i thought it was well-shot porn until the framing, performances, direction, and scene transitions began to settle in my brain; and, i was overcome by this..."yearning".

  pure, entangled yearning. a sense-memory from a dream that feels like it doesn't belong to me, doesn't need my involvement; but, it's been in front of me all along. not begging for attention; just existing, fragrantly. like a wild forest.

listening

i have my favorites on my phone. the app i use, Musicolet, does a top-ten-of-the-year thing.

most of it is the same from last year, lol. but, i have a couple "new" songs that i kept repeating, especially while cleaning.

Enjoy the Silence

spent a solid week going through Depeche Mode's discography. what. a. bop.

Watermelon

watched and loved Dinner in America. i should check if the fictional band album exists, "cause that was great, too.

Punish

i think i've found Ethel Cain at just the right time. learned to play this on the piano.

been getting into themed playlists on youtube to get back into surfing new music.

• Playlist for Smooth Brained Organisms
• late fall playlist - anne pfaff
• Curve and Light - 60s SUMMER in Space (2021)

on that note: if you aren't vibing vinyl-DJ-channels like My Analog Journal, you're missing out on a great way to really dig into a genres via space-time.

searching "vinyl set", "vinyl session", or "full vinyl" will get you a solid spread.

• 90s hip hop, Old school NY Rap, BOOM BAP (Vinyl Studio Session) - DJ Zen
• Forgotten Jazz, Soul & Funk Treasures of Yugoslavia with Miss Mash

i don't, and hardly ever, have an album-of-the-year/month/whenever. but, i've had a good time enjoying the idea of one.

• Cindy Lee - Diamond Jubilee
• three lices and a molly - 'maybe we'll hug each other in a past life'
• Tottomori ~ Dream Merchant (Imaginary Game Soundtrack)

not from this year, but whatever

• The Cure - Disintegration this was my first time listening to The Cure, ever. i get why it's essential goth/rock history.
• Devoid of Everything - Left For Dead