hi again. its been a while since i spilled my guts but theres been a nagging feeling that i should get back on it. Those first 2 blog posts were lowkey me trying to dispel some curses or something but, I've been worried to get back to it because of that. Like I cant have this be all about me feeling bad because the whole point was to move past that right? But it is hard still. Of course right? I lost something that I used like a security blanket for like, a pretty fucking long time. I'm trying not to retrace my steps and repeat what a dramatic thing it was for me. I wrote that already yknow? But I'm a tad stuck in the past is the problem.

There's these images circling around. I'm thinking maybe speaking on them would help a bit too in a way.

Usually it's when I'm doing dishes or folding clothes. Dishes is a real tough one because that's lowkey my safe place. Just such an easy beautiful game in my head, the input of me scrubbing and the output of a clean squeaky dish. It feels like a minigame in a way I really enjoy. Game analogies in general make me really happy because before I got that new security blanket games was always the thing. My life has never been dangerous but changes kept happening that irritated the hell out of me. And somehow I let some baseline expectation get set that I knew I'd never meet. I was a consistently frustrated child.

So I got on the game. And stayed on the game. And did not stop. I should thank the nintendo DS for giving me something to do for all that time but then, at the same time I sort of resent it y'know? I used games to hide, and while I was able to see digital arts beyond my wildest dreams and still do, I worry a lot about the walls it's put up around me. But then, when the wall came down it didn't quite fix my problems either. At this point I'm a ways off and out from that first area and just kind of wandering the big open field right now like when you get stuck in an old Final Fantasy game on the PS1. (subliminal ff7 hate because i cant beat it for the life of me. eventually dammit!!!!!!!!)

Anyways, holy tangent, images. I've always been bad about taking pictures in the moment when cool shit is happening, I can stop to take one of some pretty clouds, but what I wish I could get is some familiar angles that are stuck in my memory. I remember the general placement of things but truly it doesn't hit the same until you see the same old forms and colors. I've been feeling it a lot when I go out to Fulton Mall. When I moved to NYC I lived right down the street from it in like.. One of the first skyscrapers in Brooklyn to be honest... but anyways (lol..) I'm back there quite a bit now, for a variety of reasons, and whenever I am it's like wow that dark brown building with the circular kinda facades is still there and still abandoned. I'm honestly lucky because being out there recently when it's getting warmer, I'm happy to say the vibe is still pretty similar to what it once was, there's more trendy restaurants but the people haven't changed much. Can't say the same for the area around my middle school downtown in Manhattan.. But anyways yea theres these images in my mind of these places right? that abandoned building, the big open space in MetroTech with that alligator sculpture in the middle, the McDonalds along that big broadway road towards the bridge. It's funny cuz my mom n dad lived around there when they were in college and would tell me about how they knew that street pretty well too.

Theres images if my time with Them too, my ex. We spent all that time together, from high school into my adult life. When Covid had just started and everyone was super scared about getting sick some way I'd sneak out at like 2am when my family was asleep and get an uber to their house and we'd just sit on the stoop and talk until like 4 or 5am when the sun was coming up. This shit was serious to me. I'm sure it was to them too but they know better than to dwell on it unlike my dumbass. The original point I was tryna make, jeez I'm a distracted writer, is that in those corners of the day when things are going slow, I'll tend to return to these moments. Not on purpose but because they are images in my mind right. Getting too high off a sad lil joint in the park by the handball court, getting off the train and walking down the hill on a windy day, feeling that wind push me and my steps springing up knowing I was headed somewhere that felt safe.

I remember tip toeing around the upper floors of their place because I always kinda felt like I was being watched, probably cuz of the creepy mirror wall in the living room. I remember sitting on the balcony at night listening to rain sounds, I remember awkwardly drawing on the walls of their old bedroom when the house was all but abandoned except for them, I remember their mom walkin in while we made love in that same room a few years earlier, when it had an ancient vanity table in it with paint chipping, and a lil space heater cuz the pipes were always broken somehow in that old house.

I remember their grandpa's house on thanksgiving, I remember getting invited to a cookout and shooting water guns by a small beach. It could be a digital space too, I remember staying up on the phone till like 3am watching old RnB music videos from like 2004, I remember streaming anime together with friends on Rabb.it in highschool (the art of screenshare is alive and well now with discord thank goodness). The one that got me when I was doing the dishes the other day was when I'd stay over and the next morning we'd watch Fresh Prince reruns after their grandma left BET on all night, eating cereal, a really deep kind of peace.

The image is so so clear in my mind, but then there are other parts I just can't seem to recall. Attributing dates to these moments is so impossible, we had so many phases it's like a soup to me. 2019 to 2023 we broke up n started talkin again like 2 or 3 times probably. The world ended and was reborn for either one of us like 2 or 3 times in that timeframe too. I've never been great at keeping track of time anyways. The feelings are hard to remember too, I can't remember what a long kiss really felt like. But then as I say that I remember running my fingers through their hair, hugging and feeling the flesh hanging off their long slender arms. The image of it exists here with me after feeling it over and over, but seeing and feeling are very different, and a picture can't really warm me up the way a kiss once did.

When I think too much about those images my cheeks feel warm like they're getting red, in actuality I think it's the feeling of my tearducts searching for water in the desert that is my sinuses after smoking weed every fuckin day from like late 2023-2024. These images make me feel pretty emotional. When I recalled that big red couch, and their head on my shoulder while I was doing dishes I like had to retreat to my room after I finished cuz I just didn't wanna have to explain to my roommates my defeated frown. Its a tough thing because like, it's not something I can really write off. Like, this shit changed my life, before I met them I was a kid who always was deeply interested in the thought of being In Love. and I got my forbidden fruit, I got a taste and couldn't let the branch go even when it sprouted thorns and cut up my hand. For them I'm sure that makes it easy to write off, a desperate abuser looking for ground where he has none. Shit maybe it's true, I put so much of myself into it, I broke things off in 2022 and then I would walk home from school and act all wistful about them like every damn day. Yea definitely good grounds for moving on right. But that space is its own thing for me too now that's the weird thing.

Recently for a gig job I was out there again, working at a school I would always pass on my way home from college when I was 22. It was a pitifully short shift that day but I was subbing out for a friend and didn't have much to do myself anyways, but that in mind I had some time and was nearby my old route, so I went and sat on the hill in the park that I used to sit and read manga at back then. From there you can see these big pillars that hold up the nets to a big baseball court that I'd pass on the way to their place. As I'm writing and thinking about it now, that was the real problem, the route I'd take on the busses to go see them was lowkey the same route I had to take to get to school, it was right between our two houses... I've mentioned before that one of my big motivations for staying in school was to be able to support someone, that even when we weren't talking I was still thinking of them...

But I wasn't thinking about all that crap when I came this time, I was feeling the sun on my face and remembering how nice that park is in the summer, when the reservoir fills up and the water glistens. I was using the really nice swing set they have, and remembering reading Dorohedoro there when I was feeling down at that time. It felt smaller somehow, but I hadn't grown at all so I think it's just because my world has gotten bigger. Even when I'm moving about like a ghost I still form new memories wherever I go.

They're kinda weird and subliminal, in 2024 after our big breakup, I lived in a tiny apartment in Harlem for a year. We were leaving the apartment I'd lived in since I was 14 because the rent was too much for us, into a way smaller apartment where the rent was also way too much for us. We moved in in January and didn't get a working stove until October, I took the smallest room at the time because I didn't feel like fighting with my roommates who had become a bit territorial with how stressful our move was, It fit my bed and my desk and not much else. Given I was basically stuck in a shoebox I took it upon myself to go for a lot of long walks. The funny thing about it is that I wasn't exactly super happy then, I was deep in mourning for what I'd lost, and yet when I was getting driven through it after a road trip with my new roommates a couple months ago I was deeply nostalgic for those walks. My sister would be fighting loudly with her boyfriend, or I'd need to find a new place to buy weed after all the unlicensed shops got cracked down on, or I was gonna be stuck in a boring organizational meeting on Discord for the college club I was in. I'd take anything as an opportunity to get out and walk about. And it was great! I love being in the heights cuz you get the closeness of Manhattan but it still has that homey feeling I get when I'm in the outer boroughs. It's a part of Manhattan that actually feels lived in, and I loved looking out along the water to see Jersey or the Bronx on the other side. I'd bike around there sometimes with my friend who lives in midtown and we'd bike up around highbridge park or into Marble Hill by where I used to get on the train downtown. We'd meet up at night too to bike around the Central park loop and I would deadass make the whole ride back at 1am up the hill on Convent Ave. Once I was out of that apartment and staying with my parents out in Westchester county, I'd walk from City College to Yankee Stadium after club meetings ran late to get some fresh air, and now lately I walk past Yankee Stadium on my way to work at one of the afterschool programs I'm running. Just being able to map it out right now in my head is making me really happy.

Biking has done a lot for me in this time, being able to get around fast and really recognize the city around me feels so amazing and it helps me create this space in my head like a minimap. The images form lines that connect together and I'm reminded of all kinds of little moments where, even though I was probably spending a ton of energy remembering stupid crap, making myself sad, I was still taking in the environment around me subconsciously. I felt like a ghost but I was still alive.

Lately it's been a problem though. This winter was one of the coldest in a while and now that I live deep in Brooklyn the land is flat and it's just houses as far as your eyes can see. I have a nice big room now and a computer with two monitors and nowhere too important to be for most of my week. My roommates even fix dinner for me too so I really don't need to worry about taking care of myself near as much. I'm thankful to have it, like I'm definitely comfortable but comfort has never been enough to satisfy me really. Not since Someone Important helped me realize theres more to this shit than that. Ugh... and thinking about how busy they must be was a really bad habit of mine last year. Like at the end of 2024 when I really had to reckon with what a piece of shit I'd been and the fact that there's still nothing to fucking do about it. That part is really hard, I honestly kept the relationship going for way longer than it had any right to go because I just couldn't sit with the idea of messing up and not getting another shot. Maybe cuz I'm always on that damn game...

But there's nothing to do about it truly, unless I get another angry email but like shit I don't want it!! I don't want another because even since last post I'm still thinking about it and putting meaning into it when it doesn't really deserve it. Their assessment of me was wrong! That was like 4 months ago! And maybe it shows that they're still going through it too. I wouldn't wish that upon them but, it'd make me feel a bit less like a crazy person. But I don't like how I sound talking about it right now. I don't want this blog to be about them this is about me, what I'm up to. So anyways.

I haven't had shit to do right? So now lately I've been actually drawing and posting more which feels good. I played through Klonoa 2 for the friend I was playing the first game for and that was great fun. I'm trying to think of other reasons to hit her up now cuz it was nice to be on with someone and get the chance to talk about real shit. She reminded me to stop taking peoples shit, when she cried over some rude shit this guy in the server we're in said.

I've been reading Hitman Reborn still! And it actually really grew on me. I'm trying to not get too pissed about the backwards middle school logic in these types of manga because I like the art and the story is fun and acting like a cop about it only makes me harder on myself. I can be aware that it's got problems and still find room to enjoy it right? And I have been, I love in a manga when all the characters live close to each other and can actually hang out often. It's something I miss deeply about being a kid since everything and everyone feels so far now.. I gotta say though, once I was really into the gags from the first 60-or-so chapters the tonal shift into hype moments action stuff kinda wore on me a bit. It's still drawn well and I like the characters now but it'd be nice to get more slice of life stuff again even after that shift.

So ok I'm making myself new stuff to do, which is better than last year where I really did spend a lot of time tying myself in knots, but I also had to finish up my last term of college so if I got too into something new I would've gotten distracted and stuck with 1 class to go for ANOTHER term so hey. It's a give and take right? Speaking of, I actually interviewed at a school and should be putting my stupid degree to use finally so I'm excited at that prospect. I'm nervous to start, but after a really good day at work this past Saturday I remembered that teaching kids to make video games makes me very happy. It's one time where I feel like all my random art knowledge and opinions can really shine, and it's involved work so I don't need to worry about random bad thoughts. When I'm doing that work I feel present. I can't speak for the admin stuff I'll have to do but I know I've got the skills for the live performance part so like. Dude!!!!! That's big right?

Even still though I see myself getting caught up in images, not just the old ones from my memory but another one that's been getting to me a lot is the images I see online. I'm used to the tumult of random bullshit the internet exposes me too, and I know you are too so we can skip that part, but the thing that's been getting to me is my relationship with the art I see on Instagram n shit. I think I've mentioned that I wanna post art independently online and have been wanting to for a long time right? I've been watching my peers, some a lil older or younger than me, do it for so long now, and lately it's been pissing me off. I mean, the reality is that it's always pissed me off. I keep resenting people when they shine brighter than me, and it's such a bad bad habit. It did a lot of damage in my past relationship too. It's tough, because I've been using social media to kind of tend to my mind when I'm feeling uncomfortable in a long boring moment right? There's so many youtube videos coming out now about logging off and spending time in nature or being present and all that crap, my therapist will vouch for it too. Generally I tend to agree, but the problem I'm seeing now is like, you can't just delete something like that from your life and expect things to work right? You need to use the empty space left behind and fill it with something new!!!

I'm trying to post now, so that I can stand next to my peers. I've been using social media like how people used to use daytime television, you just watch the images go. I fucking hate that feeling with social media though!! It's not like watching TV cuz that was always fake right? But social media has this weird degree of real to it, you know it's usually just one other person on the other side. So I'm watching these people and getting to know them, but I'm not actually getting to know them at all! I'm just a fan, observing and becoming familiar with strangers who can't even see me, some of whom might not even be able to fathom me as one person amongst thousands of likes and comments. That's the part I really don't like, being a commenter who doesn't even get noticed, it's embarrassing. The whole song and dance is embarrassing really, but a friend of mine reminded me that all these people I seem to respect so much are playing along with it too right? Even the people who are super anti-social media anti-meta all that crap. So I should just do it too right and stop freaking out about it. That feeling of being a spectator of someone else's life, it makes me feel like a creepy stalker when I'm not even trying to be one to begin with! I want to stop feeling that way really bad, so I'm trying to put myself out there in small ways. I feel like I'm seeing the outcome of that now because I got likes from someone I met in a discord server on Bluesky, and this younger artist who I really respect followed me recently after I got their Discord and helped them get started making an RPGMaker game a few months ago.

That stalker-y feeling totally sucks, and I'd like to figure out how to overcome it in my local life too as well. I'm gonna make art and eventually maybe I'll try to sell some, but I also want to go to like comics meetups and art markets and stuff and figure out how to meet people there. Art is wild because it's like the one way I know how to actually express any of the things I think or feel but then I've been stopping myself from getting super into it because of responsiblities, or not wanting to look embarrassing online, and like, the fuck is that?? Right before I caught this cold I'm recovering from, I had a meeting with my therapist and I talked about how now that I have a stupid Bachelor's Degree I can like, begin with the rest of my life. Literally, like I met the stupid arbitrary baseline I set for myself and know that it's a bunch of bullshit now so like, I really never have to worry about that part again. I can worry about my job prospects or where I'm gonna move but the rest is really up to me and thinking about that really feels insane. It makes me glad I persevered even though I know it was a total waste of time cuz at least now I don't have to "what if?" about having gone to stupid school. but then as I was typing that I did kinda get caught up about it again... The time is whatever, that's a give and take but like, I feel like the depressed, bare minimum way of living I entered while finishing school is exactly why I'm here right now still mourning a lost connection.

I know not to put myself through something like that again, which is definitely important and I was able to get something out of it while learning that lesson, but it's digging up another image that I deal with a lot. It's that image of what could've been, the silly fantasies about roughing it out with my ex and working as an artist straight out of highschool, or before I re-enrolled in college in 2022. Drifting around and shit, the idea that I might've grown stronger by putting myself into a difficult and new situation instead of repeating rote shit that I already knew I didn't like. When I think about that, I feel like I'm the coward they must see me as...

But then images of my current reality come back. Because I remember how stressed they made me feel sometimes, I remember lying in the grass the day they told me they didn't want to be together anymore and just wanted to be friends. Them trying to wordlessly leave me behind on the train platform after a night where I was acting really in my own head and insecure. And those times don't make me angry or anything now but they do make me a little sad, because beyond all of it I just wish I didn't have to lose them to get to this point.

Some people are better at moving on than others, but I think regardless of that I'm accepting that the time we spent together was and still is kind of important to me, in part because the images are still so clear in my mind, and because when I see them I still feel those things I once did. The thing now is that I'd really like to make new memories. Like holy shit that's all I've really been looking for for YEARS now I think. Even before we broke up, I was always looking to make cool memories in my 20s, to reach new highs. I didn't want a girlfriend so bad because of some arbitrary clout reasons I just knew if I really met someone that I felt understood me, that it would feel really really good. And it did!

I'd like to feel all kinds of new good feelings, that can meet or even surpass those highs, but I've found there's a kind of membrane around me where like, if a moment feels too familiar I might not be able to fully appreciate it. I dunno, there was this high risk, high love kind of feeling in me then, that I took a risk and found real safety, that I'd earned myself a spot and for once it was ok to feel real good. I'd like to feel real good now, but I think part of the problem is like, some of the things that used to make me feel so good kinda need a little something more now. I wanna find some real belonging dammit! I have a lot of friends at this point, and I like them! but I miss when it was a bit easier to bare my soul to someone at 2am while watching anime openings because we all had the same schedule and it was friday night before the weekend. I think it's that vulnerable feeling, I wanna be able to do it better but then I need to figure out how to stop worrying about the image I hold of myself in my own mind. Another image that I'm working on. I think it'll be a bit easier when I'm making some more money and can put together a better wardrobe. I'm trying to dress like myself finally and there's growing pains I wish I'd gotten over sooner but it's kind of exciting y'know?

I want to reach new heights, the funny thing now is that trying to discern what will get me there has been a whole different ballgame truly. I spent so much time last summer biking across Brooklyn to go to parties in Bushwick, Williamsburg, in hopes that SOMETHING might happen. But I realize now like, I was just trying to brute force an epic moment super hard! I would get to a party and waste money on expensive beer and sit alone and dance a bit and go home alone! What the hell is that! So I'm trying to be more discerning now and think of what makes me feel that kind of satisfaction. Y'know what's been working? I beat Final Fantasy Tactics a week ago after starting it and bouncing off a few times since like fall of last year. I was so proud of myself for sticking it out! And it was a game that really stuck with me as an actually distinctive piece of art! There's been other games I've played in the past few years that made me feel similar and I keep coming back to those memories, Kingdom Hearts 2, The World Ends With You (I've been on a Square Enix kick), Klonoa and Klonoa 2, really cool shit! Stuff that reaffirmed that I know what the hell I'm about, because there's still more great art that does exactly the type of thing I'm aiming for! Working with young people is memorable too, those moments when one of my students really expresses their creative voice, or takes to something I said offhandedly during a lesson, I can't remember the names of all my old students but I remember certain faces so vividly. I'm thinking of this drag troupe I became a fan of last summer too, and how seen I feel sometimes with their song choices and performances.

It's that feeling when something beautiful and untameable becomes something friendly and familiar, or when the familiar challenges your expectations and becomes new and beautiful again. The common thread is that continued exposure, visiting a friend's house all the time, remembering someones name after seeing them around a lot. I'm gonna look for more experiences like that now, but I hope at some point as I get older and get my own place eventually that I'll be able to put myself "closer to the action" because I know there's still stuff in this city left for me to see and feel, and I wanna get better at talking to people too because they're an important part of these images, that become like homes away from home. Bonfires, like dark souls, that's another home away from home for me LOL..

The other thing I probably have to keep in mind though is that they won't always show up in places I expect. Recently when I was walking home from being out too late again I was looking at the night sky and I actually felt kind of wistful about last summer which surprised me. It wasn't a wistfulness for a party I'd been to but for the bike ride home, when the weather is warm and no one's outside and the entire street belongs to me. And I blast music and ride fast and the wind blows through my hair.

It caught me off guard, and it made me excited for this summer.

Thank you for reading if you did. I really didn't think this one would be as long as the others but here we are again LOL.. Hopefully at some point I'll figure out how to keep things shorter and sweeter. But I do feel like I've connected another neuron or two having written all this down somewhere which is definitely the goal with this blog. I can't say I know when the next post will be, but I'm hoping that whatever it is I'll be able to make it more about what I've actually been up to than what's happened in the past.. I'd say this one is a step in the right direction! It is also still my blog tho so really ur gonna get whatever feels right for me at the time so I thank you for your patience and viewership. Have a good day. 💕