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Hello, it’s nice to write to you again.

I’m okay, I’m just really tired. I’ve been busy and trying to imagine my life as it might be, perhaps 5 years from now. I’ve never been particularly good at planning that far out, or further out than a single year anyway. My partner’s Grandma swears by it though, and she’s escaped several terrible marriages and lived a kind of fairy-tale like life (at least through my eyes) since she started planning ahead in 5 year chunks. I know a lot of it was luck, but I think it probably helps to have a map in your hand when you come to crossroads.

I printed out two of my simple piano pieces so that my partner could give them to their Grandma. She’s an accomplished musician. She had an interesting observation that I wasn’t expecting about one of my pieces and it blew my mind—it’s a real privilege to have an elder focus their life knowledge and expertise on something you create. It made me feel nice to hear that she liked playing them. I hope I can hear her play them on a real piano when I’m vaccinated.

I think I’ve cemented more of my musical composition style down over the past month. One of my recent pieces made my partner cry by the end when they listened to it the first time through. My last two pieces spoke to my dad a lot. Or that’s what he says anyway. I trust that he is being truthful and not just being nice. He generally doesn’t tell white lies. I think I’m like him that way. I don’t think I could tell a lie to save my life. My face always contorts strangely and my voice shifts. My body panics.

I guess the problem for me is that it deeply depresses me to explore the emotions that are bringing these particular musical pieces out. I know that working my feelings out through writing music gets them out where I can hear them, make sense of them, and share them with other people in a way that I struggle to with spoken words. It just feels like cramming from University for final exams for some reason without sleep for days, slamming sugar-laden coffees and eating vending machine snacks at the 24 hour library, even though I’m composing exclusively during the day and my sleep has been relatively regular. I’m not really relieved until I get feedback from someone and we can talk it through.

I don’t know what people like me are supposed to do if they don’t intentionally make marketable content for the internet or start patreons or webpages with ads and get semi-famous and familiar with their sponsors. I don’t see going to school for any of the things I’m interested in happening, especially now that I know myself significantly better than I did at 18. I don’t even know where to start with the internet sharing process, if I would want to be anonymous with a screen name or use my real name, what to do about legal issues if they come up, the list is endless. So much of it is luck and based on tastes of other folks, too. I also don’t know how to maintain a “real” job when I am so lucky to land a full time position with benefits. The schedule and social demands are usually wildly overwhelming for me.

I don’t really want recognition or acclaim or more money than I need, I just want to make things; eat food that doesn’t make me sick; live in a small, moderately climate controlled building; tend to plants in the summer; live in exile in the winter; and primarily be left to my (technological) devices. My brain isn’t suited to do much else and I don’t care to shape it to fit what “society” or economy expect me to do anymore. I think I’m burnt out. I have a couple months off coming up. I’m going to try to take it easy and let myself do whatever I’m drawn to. Hopefully that’ll ground me and help me re-regulate my emotions and thoughts.

I watched an amateur documentary as a young teenager about an artist who was famous locally for his beautiful graphic designs, textiles, and paintings depicting gay life. For some reason, I didn’t want my parents to catch me watching it, so I had the volume on low and I had my finger on the remote’s power button the whole time. The artist lived most of his adult life in an adorable single story cabin, framed by softly needled trees off a well-hidden dirt road, tucked away from a lot of human nonsense. He made his living by making things for people and selling his works with more mainstream appeal at art shows. He hosted queer people from all over the States in his home, like family. I realize this documentary was technically like his (posthumous) social media highlight reel, but it was such a treasure to take in for me. He spent most of his time in solitude, making aesthetically pleasing, socially meaningful art. And when he wasn’t alone, he was surrounded by interesting strangers who became lifelong friends.

Isn’t that just the point of life? The older I get, the more it resonates with me, especially as more people move away and I’m not in a spot where I am able to host them if they wanted to come visit me.

If I were to post my work online, I guess I worry about people I used to know, old bullies, old friends, old dates hearing about me and what I do, and consuming my material, and telling people about it?? I don’t really know why I care about what they think of me now. I guess I feel like for the people that have hurt me, I don’t want to passively extend the opportunity to them to see into my mind, and where I am now by making my work public under my legal name? I don’t want them to know the extent to which they got to me?

I feel like I’m outwardly supposed to pretend that it all never happened, otherwise they know they did what they meant to at the time. I also don’t feel like there is a feel-good, constructive dialogue to be had with them now that we’re all adults where we talk it out and come out better together. I want to believe people change and that many become more empathetic or at least see logical reasons to be kind and compassionate to other people over time. I do for the most part. But there is a small part of me that has died with growing older, because I have watched so many people never change, and actually become worse. People older than me tell me that it’s a part of growing up, but I don’t want losing faith in other humans to be considered growth.

I also don’t want to project the meanness I received out through my work at other people. I don’t think that is the message I want to share. I’m not dismissive or judgmental of folks who do this necessarily—I think it can be an important way of transforming an experience into a personal growth moment or a teachable moment for other folks. I guess I just don’t really want to be in a situation where I get pulled into it with people on the internet and I don’t want people plumbing through public records to be mean to someone else on my behalf.

Anyhow! I downloaded Blender and I’ve slowly learned the interface through making some silly story boards with no real direction for them in mind. I animated two pieces all the way through so far, but only one is “complete” with final lines and fills. I guess I could add shadows and lighting too, or a filter over the top, but I just wanted to see what I could do in a pinch. It’s just a set of seeds sprouting to seedlings and flapping their leaves skyward. It’s a couple seconds long, but I really like the snappy bits of motion. I was inspired by Ocean-Waves' Pi project to capture their plants growing (it's really neat!!). I followed Worthikids’ Blender tutorial and did some internet searches and trial and error to figure out the rest of what I needed to know. I’m much more confident with Blender than I was a couple weeks ago.

I’m feeling a little old and out of the technological loop haha, since I hadn’t had a computer of my own to putz around on for nearly 5 years before my partner got me this laptop. Programs, websites, and a handful of applications feel less intuitive to me now, which is something I remember my parents complaining about when I was a child. I guess if there were no UI’s when you were a kid, why would any of it make sense to you without taking the time to learn them? They feel intuitive when they’re the user interfaces you grow up with, or you don’t miss key interface changes in the chain of progression. It’s ok, I can learn, it’ll just take some time and mistakes. Like everything else.

We’re getting our first CSA box soon. I’m really excited! I’ve ramped up my cooking with vegetables lately to get used to how meal preparation is different with lots of veggies on hand. I’ve been steaming, blanching then marinating, (dry) roasting, frying, quick pickling, and trying different spice combinations. Vegetables (especially the fresh kind) weren’t a huge thing in my early home life, so I’m kinda filling in and fleshing out what I learned from being a vegan and vegetarian many years ago. I think I didn’t like them when I was younger because we just didn’t learn how to bring out their inherent good tastes.

There is so much to know about vegetables and so far in my experience it seems like all of the methods usually work across different vegetables of similar character. I’ve been trying out making side dishes that go with meals throughout the week, after bingeing Future Neighbor banchan recipe videos, and Dianxi Xiaoge and Liziqi meal videos, and realizing that having small, diverse side dishes in the fridge is probably one of the best ways to make sure we use up everything we’re getting. It works well for us so far!

Thanks for reading! I hope you’re getting some time to be outside, or inside, depending on what you need. Seeya next time.