Welcome to my diary...? Right now, I separate "Diary" and "Writings" because I aim to keep my creative work, essays and such separate from my personal writing. So, if you don't care about what happens in my life, don't read this! It's kind of embarrassing, if I'm being honest!

By clicking entries, you will find an index of my main diary entries. There are tags for different topics in the menu to the left if you find them troublesome to sort through. There are also bite-sized ramblings, quick little rambles that I'd post to Twitter or something if I still used it. Have fun!

an admission of need

Can’t Help Myself, by Sun Yuan & Peng Yu

When I first heard about "Can't Help Myself" I thought it was about need. A machine (person) who keeps on needing, trying to grasp the unattainable, for no reason at all. But that's how art criticism works when you're young. You're not quite worldly yet, so you see everything through the lens of your own personal context. Nobody can really say how long it persists. It takes a silly, almost shameful level of self-obsession to look at such a deliberate work of art (which certainly has a message greater than one's self) and to say: I think this is about me.

(But is there anything wrong with that?) (You could say universality is the aim of all art.)

Recently, I've been thinking about detachment (as in asceticism) and avarice. They don't exist parallel to eachother, but rather, directly above and below. underneath the veil of detachment lies an ardent need. It's scary. It's like a monster. You don't want it to get too big, or it'll destroy the fortress of self-preservation & reliance you've painstakingly crafted. To re-attach yourself to the outside world would be like opening the floodgates. You don't really want to need, either; to need means to resign yourself to the push-and-pull, the reciprocal, natural duty you have in relationships. You don't want anyone to expect anything of you. You can't fulfill it. So you curl into yourself, into a trench of self-obsession; that's avarice.

(You speak in 2nd person because you don't really want to claim ownership of what you're thinking.)

The 'avarice' of the 5 is about 'holding back' and 'holding in'. It is a fearful grasping, in the belief that letting go would cause catastrophe. The 5 'hoards' emotions, energy, resources, and self, out of a fear and experience of impending impoverishment. [...] Their inner polarity is between pathological detachment and holding on. The 5 hides their neediness behind a stoic veil of indifference, resignation, and renunciation. They are detached, withdrawn, and obsessive. (src.)

I think that inherently, I'm an obsessive person. Whenever I lose someone, I fall deep into the realm of obsessiveness. Not with people, but with myself; with building myself up after that loss, to somehow remake myself around the absence. I've been reading, creating, I feel empty otherwise. No, I still feel empty. you know you can't replace love with something else.

(I'm sorry for acting like I was okay with losing you.)

So I'm telling you that I need it - love. And forgiveness and softness and that I'm sorry it's so dreadful being friends with me & I really do love you. And I'm not just saying it. I've realized my self-concept is largely defined by others. If I act unexpectedly, it feels - fake. Uncanny. Disjointed. Does this make any sense at all? I feel like I'm lying. Even if I'm not. So I'm saying it here, I'm writing out my love inbetween these lines. Like an annotation.

winter obsessions

hourlies (2021), mabel ye

(whispering softly) i do this to my cat too. ah... cats all over the world are held hostage listening to our obsessions

i enjoy following my thought process especially when i get carried away and go down web-rabbitholes. yesterday, i saw a video of someone wearing a mimikyu onesie (very cute), was overcome with the urge to buy it, then i realized i might want a onesie that's not mimikyu, right, i was looking at gloomy onesies a while ago, so i started browsing mercari for gloomy kigurumi. (they were all gone) then, i started looking for other pokemon onesies. leafeon is very cute. if i was an eeveelution i would want to be leafeon. but i've also been told i'm like glaceon! anyway, i was absentmindedly searching 'kigurumi' on mercari (in english, i don't usually do this) and i came across this cute little guy!

baby dayan 'kigurumi' figure

really cute, right?! i love seeing the different way artists stylize cats (nekojiru, etc). the artist is akiko ikeda, she also writes picture books with these cats, such as 'dayan's birthday'! the dayan franchise also has plushies, phone cases, ceramics, even mochikororin... ahhh!!! in my searches i've even found life-size statues and fursuit cosplays of the characters. i didn't know it was so popular! i'll talk more about akiko ikeda in the section, since this is just my journal heheh :'3.

i've also been very into kaiji... i've read so many chapters! i'm at one-poker hen right now. i think fukumoto-san inadvertantly invented gay romance (HOLDING UP A SIGN THAT SAYS 'KAIJI IS BL. YOU GUYS JUST DON'T KNOW IT YET'). it's likely fkmt wrote kazuya as simply pessimistic when it comes to romance, which he is (i think he has an unconventional conception of it, he's attracted to people based on how challenging they are rather than how kindly they treat him or how conventionally attractive they might be). when he was younger, he seemed to hang around lots of women due to social obligation or, because they just threw themselves at his feet being hyoudou's son. for instance, when he said that 'it was probably just the alcohol and the women, but i felt like i had real friends'. they're like chess pieces, he's offering money & women & booze to The Guys so he can actually feel close to someone. especially considering his novel, i think he views all women as shallow & incapable of loving, so he wouldn't be open to relationships with them anyway.

i also got the new pokemon remake on switch (shining pearl)! yay! slowly making my way through it. my team changes every second because i want to finish the pokedex, so i keep switching out pokemon to level them up. went to daiso in sacramento and got some cute things. grid notebook perfect for kanji practice, rilakkuma alcohol wipes, little page markers for my books, cat socks. i actually don't have a car right now, because my dad periodically sells every car he has so the only working ones are his & my mom's. but when i DO get my own, i want to tidy it up and put my little hamster air freshener in it.

on overhearing conversations at the bookstore, pony quest

I went to the bookstore to finish my logic homework today. I like overhearing others' conversations while I study - there's always this really friendly employee who I see often. They're always there when I visit! They must work a lot. They have long hair, and they're always wearing this long black pleated skirt with a few straps and pouches hanging off of it. Apparently when they lived in Carmichael and worked together with a friend, they'd listen to audiobooks together during the commute.

After I finished my homework, I had planned to go to Goodwill since I saw a really cute light pink jacket (with a star pattern on the inside of the hood) the last time I was there. It was a little thin, though, which is why I left it behind last visit. But they close early on Sunday, and I was too busy doing homework to go. I'll go tomorrow, after my orthodontist appointment! I wish I could get light pink ties for my braces, but since they don't have that color, I will stick with light blue. I noticed my teeth have gotten pretty yellow, though :[ and one of my front teeth has a little indent in it because I would always bite my nails and it wittled away the bone. Ah... we can't be perfect, can we?

Anyway, I want to look for more MLP plushies or figures at Goodwill - I hope to find some old G1-G3 ponies. I feel a little silly being 18 years old in the kids' section (I also look in the kids' section for clothes sometimes, that's where I found that jacket) but I've found a lot of good stuff over the years. I get lots of my cargo pants from the boys' section since men's clothes don't fit, usually... Or, it's just hard to find a variety of styles in my size.

I also browsed some cute Mother Garden stuff and made a sideblog for it. I really like this strawberry chair, and even though I have enough to buy it, I am saving money (and I am unemployed, so it is hard to come by)... My room is already so messy as it is! Maybe when I move out, I'll only bring a few things I like with me, to keep things neat.

03/06/2022 @ 11:47 PM / on overhearing conversations at the bookstore, pony quest

I went to the bookstore to finish my logic homework today. I like overhearing others' conversations while I study - there's always this really friendly employee who I see often. They're always there when I visit! They must work a lot. They have long hair, and they're always wearing this long black pleated skirt with a few straps and pouches hanging off of it. Apparently when they lived in Carmichael and worked together with a friend, they'd listen to audiobooks together during the commute.

After I finished my homework, I had planned to go to Goodwill since I saw a really cute light pink jacket (with a star pattern on the inside of the hood) the last time I was there. It was a little thin, though, which is why I left it behind last visit. But they close early on Sunday, and I was too busy doing homework to go. I'll go tomorrow, after my orthodontist appointment! I wish I could get light pink ties for my braces, but since they don't have that color, I will stick with light blue. I noticed my teeth have gotten pretty yellow, though :[ and one of my front teeth has a little indent in it because I would always bite my nails and it wittled away the bone. Ah... we can't be perfect, can we?

Anyway, I want to look for more MLP plushies or figures at Goodwill - I hope to find some old G1-G3 ponies. I feel a little silly being 18 years old in the kids' section (I also look in the kids' section for clothes sometimes, that's where I found that jacket) but I've found a lot of good stuff over the years. I get lots of my cargo pants from the boys' section since men's clothes don't fit, usually... Or, it's just hard to find a variety of styles in my size.

I also browsed some cute Mother Garden stuff and made a sideblog for it. I really like this strawberry chair, and even though I have enough to buy it, I am saving money (and I am unemployed, so it is hard to come by)... My room is already so messy as it is! Maybe when I move out, I'll only bring a few things I like with me, to keep things neat.

Welcome to my diary...? Right now, I separate "Diary" and "Writings" because I aim to keep my creative work, essays and such separate from my personal writing. So, if you don't care about what happens in my life, don't read this! It's kind of embarrassing, if I'm being honest!

By clicking entries, you will find an index of my main diary entries. There are tags for different topics in the menu to the left if you find them troublesome to sort through. There are also bite-sized ramblings, quick little rambles that I'd post to Twitter or something if I still used it. Have fun!

03/29/2022 jack of some master of none