lotus pond

2023.05.01 - quick update

april, in short: i wasn't really able to write, or read as much as i wanted, but i did go on a weeklong trip to toronto, which was really really nice, and i've been slowly putting together a blog post about it. coming back to work was kind of sad and tough, and i've been spending a lot of time on my phone.. on the flipside, i've been spending a lot of time studying mandarin, and i feel good about the progress i've made. this weekend it was so dreary and wet, i didn't spend a second outside and it's been hard to fight off this lethargic feeling. i don't really have a point to end on, it feels like there are so many things i need to do and not enough energy or time. i guess i'll try to nibble away at some things today..

2023.02.22 - escape hatch

i've been sleeping horribly—i think i might have sleep apnea? i've struggled to get good sleep since 2018, but i could always attribute it to other things—teeth clenching, crohn's flare, early morning construction, bedtime procrastination. but it seems like it's been getting worse these last few months, the inevitable waking in the middle of every night, throat dry, feeling like i haven't been getting enough air. i truly can't recall the last time my body let me sleep for 8-10 hours straight and wake up refreshed. i wish i didn't hate making calls and setting up appointments, and even more so when i feel like death, but i need to schedule a sleep study...

the worse i feel in my body, the more disconnected i feel from everything around me. like i'm not really present in the sensations of touching and talking and typing. as every jolt of pain in my jaws or eyes or stomach brings me unwillingly into my body, i reflexively pull back, hanging around somewhere behind the feeling self, where i can get through the day. it's not really a place hospitable to desire, just impulse—the constant urging toward escape by way of layering distraction on distraction. compiling a backlog, browsing google maps, playing repetitive video games. the deferral of living to an imagined time and place where life can be fully lived. not in this place, this acheful almost-life, land of soreness and strained capacities.

i try to remind myself to take deep breaths, to feel the pleasure in breathing, to keep myself fed and watered, to stretch, to feel the stretch in the stretch. to attend to. to not put off replying. to not put off feeling, thinking, living. to stay present long enough to cook the food in my fridge.

i wish i felt better. i wish it were something i could just release into the air. it's not all suffering all the time. it's just like a limit, a boundary over everything, a sinking every so often. a hole i keep sliding into, have to keep lifting myself out of so i can keep going. and i do. i keep going..

2023.02.08 - good morning

i made garlic cucumber last night and it was ?!?! somehow the best i've ever made it. an alchemical mystery. and then, i finished reading planet of exile, book 2 of this ursula le guin collection titled worlds of exile and illusion. first of all, it's so funny that they came up with this title by just mashing together the names of the books: rocannon's WORLD, planet of EXILE, city of ILLUSION. secondly, i love ursula le guin's writing so much. rightfully so, left hand and the dispossessed get a lot of love, but i barely hear a peep about the others in the hainish cycle, and having made it to the third book of this original "trilogy", i can see why they're regarded, if at all, as "lesser" works by comparison, but i think they still fully deserve to be read! there's a lot of wonderful, moving writing in them, and they share a lot of ideas, themes & motifs with her later books. she writes so evocatively about... every kind of feeling, and about time and space, and about meeting one another across the vast gulf of difference.

[...] the cold of the bright November morning woke him fully. He pulled on his shirt and breeches—heavy, soft, dark cloth of Parth's weaving, cut and fitted for him by Buckeye—and stood at the wooden rail of the porch looking across the Clearing to the brown and red and gold of the trees.

Fresh, still, sweet, the morning was as it had been when the first people on this land had waked in their frail, pointed houses and stepped outside to see the sun rise free of the dark forest. Mornings are all one, and autumn always autumn, but the years men count are many. There had been a first race on this land... and a second, the conquerors; both were lost, conquered and conquerors, millions of lives, all drawn together to a vague point on the horizon of past time. The stars had been gained, and lost again. Still the years went on, so many years that the forest of archaic times, destroyed utterly during the era when men had made and kept their history, had grown up again. Even in the obscure vast history of a planet the time it takes to make a forest counts. It takes a while. And not every planet can do it; it is no common effect, that tangling of the sun's first cool light in the shadow and complexity of innumerable wind-stirred branches... (from city of illusion)

what else is new? i had a lot of health (insurance) problems in the past two months, but things are getting back on track. the stress and pain had me feeling disconnected from my body and my surroundings; i'm trying to get back in touch. learning mandarin is slow-going but steady. i might plan a trip to toronto with my friends in the spring. i've been downloading so many movies lately that i actually need to start watching them before my hard drive runs out of storage. stay tuned for upcoming screenings...

mabel's dancing tiktoks are my favorite way of discovering songs. okay but i love this katamari core shit!!

i've been in a long creative lull, but i feel like it's coming to an end soon. we'll see.


2023.02.07 - big renovation

i haven't really been satisfied with the layout of my blog recently, so i'm planning on making some changes, like moving the navigation links to a left sidebar, moving site updates elsewhere, tinkering with css (hello again, times new roman). the biggest thing though is that i don't need all these pages! i feel like it's kind of discord-brained. i enjoyed using tumblr cuz i could just post whatever and it would end up on one page/feed, rather than have to make a new page for every post, or update a different sub-page every time i wanted to share a song or book rec. and i also think from a reader standpoint, it's nice to not have to click through too much.. so yeah, i'm gonna try to reorganize my blog, maybe centralize short posts, musicposting, filmposting (..) on the home page. like so.

edit 2 hours later: phew! i got a lot done this morning. header is now a sidebar (turns back into header on narrow windows, i.e. phone screen), and the homepage will be my new shortpost feed for now. there'll still be a posts archive for longer posts. i'll mess with the formatting more as i go.


2023.01.13

new longpost!

i set up different backgrounds for daytime and nighttime, but then i went back to the original css. i think it's just not something i want to do site-wide, but something to keep in my back pocket for future blog experiments!


2023.01.01 - a new year

i removed the photo BGs and the scrollboxes. i'm trying to stay off my phone and computer more (so far so good lol) but i still want to stick to my goal of updating this blog once a week or so. happy new year, be well!

[edit 2023.01.13: they did not stay off their phone and computer more.]


2022.12.13 - gardens of vextro out now!

uploaded my first longpost today—i haven't had much time to blog but i wanted to post something about the big release! or if you want to go straight to the downloads, you can visit the gardens of vextro itch page.


2022.11.30

hey :-) still here, hoping to get some updates in this week. rude of my job to give me actual work instead of letting me blog on the clock..

more importantly: new project releasing soon!! can't wait to share it with you all.


2022.11.21

posted two new short game reviews. i want to start screening movies again soon. i need to sleep good night!

2022.11.15 - site updates


2022.11.09 - site updates

worked a lot on my blog this evening :-) i added a comment section; i didn't rly want to use disqus but it seems the most convenient for now... you can leave a guest comment if you don't want to sign into anything (i usually don't). it still prompts you for name and email but you can probably put whatever.

i made some changes to my reading page, added stars for my favorite reads so far, and finished setting up book thoughts to fill in later with more in-depth thoughts (just filler text rn). it took me a long time figuring out what to do with the background, since my default bg-image doesn't tile well. (i wasn't thrilled at the prospect of using a basic 2-color gradient, but then i found this website that lets you color-pick a slightly more complex gradient and paste it directly into the css.)

i still don't really have a grand vision for this blog yet, or a sense of what or how much more i'll want to do with it, but i'm trying to take it one small "project" at a time and have fun with it. every bit of engagement with the things i post here provides motivation to keep updating and building it, so thank you to everyone who's reached out or even mentioned in passing that they've looked at my blog :') i hope i can find more time to fill it with stuff—life updates, videos, recipes... not just more of my own voice, but a lot of other voices


2022.11.01

just a small update, i don't really have time to add anything, but a couple people irl have told me that they check on my blog from time to time, which is really sweet. if that's you, hi ^_^ i'll hopefully have more updates later. though i also made a cohost, which i may or may not use to post stuff. idk, still trying to find a format to put stuff on the internet that feels good, if there is one. thanks for reading ily.


2022.10.06 - intro post

thank you for stopping by.

i'm not really sure what i'm doing here yet. i wanted to make a space that was more chill and inviting. like a website you actually want to be on. unfortunately there's not a lot of stuff on it yet, so there's not much to get lost in.

i have ideas though... i'm thinking about adding a music player, a message box, embedding a bunch of random stuff like videos i like.

the problem is that updating blogs can feel lonely, it's hard to get motivated when you have no sense of who's reading it, and when, unless they tell you. obviously social media is terrible but at least that little red heart provides a fleeting moment of connection/recognition.

maybe i'll try to find a way for people to leave some kind of message or tiny indication they've been here if they want to. of course if we're friends and you want to talk to/msg me about anything i mention on here, you're always welcome to!