marching forward

11 Apr, 2024

i’ve been doing my best to half-sidle, half-bulldoze myself through the rest of march and through april. which means i’ve been well. here is a small life update! written just to write.¹ i owe myself that much, at least.

1. climbing; my boyfriend has been taking me wall climbing recently.² i’ve found that i prefer it to the usual bouldering gym we go to (but that’s also because i have terrible anxiety). being so high up makes me feel like i’m less on display. takes a bit more effort to look up. if you’re doing that much just to watch me, i guess that’s fine. my family asks how i’m not scared of falling. i’m 22. i’m young and i have an inordinate amount of faith in my body for someone who threw up trying to run on a treadmill. (this has happened more than once). i am very tender and very fragile. still, however ironic it seems, i feel like i understand my physical limits well & i know how far i can push them. i often do. the ache is grounding – to me it’s genuine proof of life. i also trust my friends not to drop me.

2. changing; new glasses. new hair. new job. new lease on life (?)

3. crossing fingers;

4. eating; i went to chinatown with misha, her family, and other friends. i’ve never been before. i received a reading and bought a charm bracelet for good luck. people keep touching it. in the past month i’ve had to cleanse it thrice. that is my own fault. i finally eased my soup & fried rice cravings. i also discovered that i love radish cake. i thought it would be some type of sweet dessert at first, but it was not.

5. hiking; i hiked 40 minutes through the mud to see a bird³ in the mountain with my best friends. it was the happiest i’ve been in a while. you get so tired all you can think of is the next step, the next little push of energy. we luckily ended up seeing him (lifer!) but even if we hadn’t, i think it would still have been worth it.

6. listening to chappell roan’s the rise and fall of a midwest princess, mirah’s you think it’s like this but really it’s like this, brit smith’s karma is a bitch (i hate jojo siwa), and feeble little horse’s girl with fish.

7. looking forward to receiving my maka albarn pop up parade figurine that i pre-ordered months ago.

8. moving to obsidian. most of my dungeon master notes are scattered between post-its, my notebook, and a very disorganized notion. i want to have them all in the same place! i also want to be more proactive. i know i discussed before that a lot of my world-building comes spontaneously, but i think i need more discipline too.

9. regretting; before one of my close friends passed away a couple years ago, he and some of my other friends climbed mt. everest. i was never into roblox and i never really understood the appeal, so i didn’t join them. i think it became one of their dearest memories together. we stayed up past midnight recently & reached the summit together. it was a pre-planned expedition, complete with roleplay. i was the ghost of sandy irvine. here to get my revenge! it was fun. but still, the others agreed that it wasn’t the same. i wish i had had that frame of reference.

10. repenting; i attended confession post-lent, pre-easter sunday. i gained nothing from it. the priest i spoke with asked me what i could do to stop sinning. he would not let me leave without a concrete answer. if i knew, would i be there? if i knew, would i even care care for religion or spirituality at all? he eventually got fed up with me and my half-baked responses and told me my penance was to pray one our father, three hail mary’s, and to figure myself out. he also advised me not to leave my job. but i did. i’m sorry.

11. trying, hard. i promise.

12. watching; community (and cursing netflix for removing it from their platform), always sunny in philadelphia, parks & recreation. my boyfriend and i are in a little sitcom phase.

13. yapping; spending a lot of time talking to friends about our upcoming daggerheart playtest oneshot, our characters, and the world. we have not played a single session & i’m already obsessed with the party. it’s a big departure from the vibes of our 5e campaign, but i think it’s good to try new things.

that's all for now. i hope you've been well.

#being