I’ve started and stopped writing this entry numerous times now. I think part of my reason is that I felt like I wouldn’t be able to cover everything that I wanted to in an update. but the truth is that the further I put off writing an update post, the more that I will want/need to cover! it’s okay though, I think I’ve come to peace with not making a 100% comprehensive post of where in the world has vita thatoddhaystack been. not that I would particularly want to, one because it would be thousands and thousands of words long but also because I feel like i’ve forgotten half the things I’ve done. that’s also okay. if I remember anything else I’ll post about it in a future blog update.
I never intend to get too deeply personal/vent-y on these posts but I will note that I read back the draft I wrote at the beginning of march. and whoa. I was going through it. I wouldn’t say I’m 100% Better now but I’m making more steps to improve than I have been for the past… almost two and a half months. I don’t want to go into detail here, but suffice to say I worked myself into an anxious mess over something that ended up being nothing at all. and now I’m doing my best to recover. I’ve started using my planner again! putting together cute spreads with all the stationary I’ve hoarded over the years is nice… a kind of art I don’t have to worry too much about.
so. what are some of the things I’ve been doing? all the way back in january I visited my mom in NYC. we ate a ton of food and ended up walking like… 40 miles over the three days I was there? I had sent her a list of places with the expectation that we wouldn’t be making it to all of them, but she took on the challenge of planning out a route to hit everything. we got to see the saw musical also! I had a ton of fun, though two of the people behind us got mad and left halfway through? all the marketing I’d seen for the musical made it obvious it was a very gay, unserious time so I think maybe they were just mad about that. weird! we were sitting in the second row and we both got squibbed with some leg blood from dr gordon, 10/10.
in february… I went to katsucon! I ended up not getting a hotel this year because katsucon 2023 I was feeling a little let down by the con, and didn’t want to invest too much this year in case it also ended up flopping for me. surprise surprise, I had way more fun than last year. I tried harder to make it to panels and watched some of the idol performances they had ongoing, and I think the lesson I’ve learned is to just go to the panels and entertainment!! wow who would have thought… I was bishoujo ghostface the first day, no cosplay the second day, and then I pulled out phi zero time dilemma for the last day. went to a lot of photoshoots, bought a lot of merchandise in the artist alley, and had a fun time all around! I still might skip katsucon next year, purely because I am debating going to a different con next year… it’s been a while since I’ve been to magfest or otakon. there’s also animenyc that I’ve never been to, but would be able to do now that my mom has a place in NYC. much to think about.
in march, I got my jlpt n3 certificate!!! I don’t think I mentioned on this site that I passed the n3, just that I took it. but I got just barely above a passing grade and honestly, with how little I ended up studying in the end I’m glad even for that. I don’t know if I’ll take the n2 this year, I haven’t been the most consistent with my studies… but more about that later. otherwise, in march I saw the band waterparks live! I bought the ticket for the concert kind of on a whim, since they were coming to a venue close to me and it was (relatively) inexpensive… the food at the venue kind of sucked, but the show was fun! I am absolutely a casual fan of waterparks, so I feel like there was some band lore that flew over my head, but the energy was still great. my mom also visited at the end of the month for easter, and we visited a farmers market and did a cocktail tasting, as well as a bunch of other stops (because my mom loves covering as much ground as she can in an outing).
april!! I visited my friends in florida for universal mardi gras as well as doing one day of spookala (horror convention held in tampa). I agonized over it for a while, but I purchased a photo op with melissa barrera of scream 5/6 fame…. she was very nice to me and the other attendees, and I for sure was a bit starstruck LOL. I got to ask her a question later on in the day when they had a panel interviewing the scream actors who had come. my friends and I also got to visit james and chelsea of dead meat and chat with them a bit! they’ve been a mainstay of my horror media consumption (for lack of a better word) for many many years now so it was cool to meet them in person! other than that, we caught the tail end of the mardi gras event at universal studios. I ate a ton of food like last mardi gras, but I also got to catch the parade this time around, which was great!! and of course, I always love spending time with my friends… looking forward to halloween horror nights in the fall when I can hang out with them again.
may is probably my busiest month so far. at the very beginning of the month was mikuexpo! there’s been. a not insignificant amount of controversy surrounding this iteration of the mikuexpo tour but I had a blast, in part because I had a friend visit from out of state to go to mikuexpo and hang out the following day. mikuexpo was not without its flaws though LMAO. maybe I’ll talk about that in a different entry. mikuexpo was exciting also because I sewed my first cosplay for it!! I mentioned this on my /now page, but I cosplayed rin’s module astray, and sewed the seifuku myself, along with making the headband. I didn’t grab a photo of the full look, but I intended on cleaning up the outfit before putting it away for now. I procrastinated and had to sew the entire outfit over the course of… a few days. I was sewing for hours at a time. never doing that again. anyways, with my friend we went to a cat cafe, where they had a batch of kittens in… I loved them.
this past weekend, I went to a local asian food and craft fest with my sister. as per usual, we ate a lot of food, and I bought a few things from craft booths. this particular fest has been going on a few years now, and it’s great to see how much it’s expanded. I had this gochujang sugar cookie that sounds like it would be nasty, but was actually delicious and I’m still missing it… I also ended up waiting 45 minutes for a matcha latte that was yummy, but probably not worth the wait… I really fell into a sunk cost fallacy once I was halfway through the line. oh well.
next weekend I have the dragula world tour performance to go to! I actually only very recently got into dragula, after I saw a few of the queens (and one king) perform at spookala at the beginning of april. prior to that, drag was something I was familiar with, but my only real life experience was a drag brunch I went to years and years ago. it was fun, but I felt like the traditional style of drag didn’t really mesh with my interests and aesthetics. the performances at spookala were completely different. like, I was aware of drag kings being a thing but it didn’t really click for me until I saw landon cider perform. there’s so much more to the world of drag that i hadn’t even realized was possible. I watched the entirety of season 5 of dragula and am slowly working my way through the others. no spoilers, but I do feel like some of the contestants got robbed LOL.
project wise… I have kind of been in a slump artistically. I did get hyperfixated on making a sandalphon shrine for my website, which still isn’t entirely complete but is complete enough that I felt alright with publishing it. still drawing weekly doodles, although I stopped limiting myself to only drawing tau in the new year. I’ve spent some time working on ukagaka, although the only thing I’ve released is a demo version of pomogaka (work timer ukagaka based on the pomodoro method). the annual ghost jam starts soon, and i have some plans for that. I hope to at least finish my ghost that I plan to complete for the 72 hour challenge.
I haven’t worked on any of my languages in. several months. I’m finally starting to chip away at my wanikani reviews again. everything else will take some more time. but I’m not concerned, I’ve dug myself out of holes like these before. I just have to keep trucking.
I’m taking another break from social media (read: twitter) for the time being. between the oldtwitter extension breaking (meaning I am forced to look at new twitter’s layout and also lost access to my precious twitter circle) and also just… feeling like twitter is actively making me a worse person (more reactionary, less patient, quick to anger, etc etc). I’m still on tumblr because the vibes there are much more relaxed, and I like that I can queue up a lot of posts and keep my blog active without having to be online 24/7. anyways, I am hoping to touch grass (read: engage in other hobbies) until my brain doesnt feel like it’s being squished in a hydraulic press. see y’all hopefully sooner than 5 months from now.