archived entries: 
q2 2026 q1 2026 oct/nov/dec '25
september '25 august '25 july '25
i switched shifts with my coworker because my grandpa has a doctor's appointment today, but my sister surprised me and was able to take him despite her recent knee surgery. i don't know if i mentioned it before, but my sister had knee surgery a year ago right before we moved into the previous house we were in, and they really messed up because she never healed properly nor was she able to rebuild her muscle. i really hope this time around that my sister can fully heal, be pain free and go back to being active. it feels nice to be alone in the house in the morning like this. it's peaceful. i don't have to be on high alert and no one can ask anything of me. i'm grateful for it.
all of those familiar, negative feelings are back. the feeling of being trapped in my own life, feeling like i will never at least have the basic success of being able to make a modest living and support myself and my hobbies financially with a job that doesn't make me want to rope. sighing through another day. it would help a bit if i could just get away a little more or if i could go swimming already. i really want to go back to the state aquarium. we took the trip for my birthday in 2018 and haven't been back since. i'm struggling to think of anything positive... i fell down the other day on my morning walk to my bus stop and my leg got scraped up pretty badly. it's finally scabbed over now, but i can't help but start picking at it. it's basically a form of stimming to me.
i officially uninstalled love and deepspace, since infold cannot be trusted as a company and it took up so much storage, i couldn't update it normally anymore. nearly half of my entire phone storage was just the game. i woke up this morning with the urge to log in and do my dailies, since it's usually the first thing i do in the morning if i'm not in a rush to get ready and go, only to remember it's gone. i feel a little empty. i know i can just redownload it, but the damage has been done and things will never be the same again. i also got two different bills for my er visit from the dog bite. 1300 dollars! for a single tetanus shot and an antibiotics prescription. don't you love the american health care system? nothing ever came of the police or animal control reports either. the least the owner of that damn dog could do is pay for my medical bills. i still haven't been able to ride my bike since because the back wheel is locked and i can't seem to fix it.
some other things that have been bothering me... the tariffs and regulations officially killing importing toys. bye-bye to my holy grails. the op cut of my current ultimate dream dress recently sold for nearly 1k, a regular ap release from 17 years ago. i have no doubt it was some newbie lolita with her parent's credit card, tearing up the market for the rest of us. my dream is dead and buried, and the fact that i sold the same print's jsk and headbow for only $200 years ago will haunt me for the rest of my life. i wish i could go back in time and tell myself to keep it and $200 is peanuts compared to how expensive it would get later on. i'll never get it back. playstation officially going 100% digital. the women's rights in my state actively going backwards. is there anything at this point that hasn't been enshittified? nearly everything in this world is actively getting worse and progress is being halted if not outright destroyed.
i'm trying really hard to think of something positive... oh! i got some really amazing attacks on art fight, and those made me really happy. art fight has been fun! i'm more excited about it than last year at least where i really wasn't feeling it, but i wish i could reupload iris, since she's the oc i care about the most... i'm also really happy to be rewatching space dandy with someone i love. i keep feeling like fate keeps kicking me while i'm already down, but i know things can be worse. thank you for another day with my grandpa, and thank you for another day with my friends and bear. i'm a broken record here, but i don't know what else to do except take it one day at a time.
summer is in full swing. it's hot, but it's always hot. i already expect summer to be miserable, but at least it's the season for swimming and snowcones. i actually feel a little bit better mentally lately, which is good. there's a lot of things i need to do, but i'm taking it one day at a time. i've been doing art, got some new travis merch, and warmie from my bestie!! thank you again so so much, he smells so good and i feel like i sleep better snuggling him.
i went to a thai restaurant i've been wanting to try for a friend's birthday. she brought me back a chiikawa from her travels!! some of the girls in the comm went on a trip to the philippines and told us all about it during dinner and a boba hangout. the pictures are unreal, it's seriously so beautiful. like the kind of imagery you see on desktop wallpapers. i hope i can go too someday, my friend said she wanted more of the group to go next time anyway. i also got to try mango sticky rice for the first time and it was delicious!! i want to go back and get some more again soon, it was so refreshing and the perfect amount of sweetness. we also tried papaya salad, which my friend loves. it was good, but way too spicy for me! i only had a taste and it ended up numbing my gums. "medium" spice? no way that dish was the same level of spicy as the rest of our food!
i also celebrated another birthday yesterday, the cousin i grew up with. i used to be really close with that side of the family and saw them all the time when i was a kid, but one day i just stopped going over and lost touch with everyone. it was surreal to see everyone again, especially since the last time i saw a lot of these family members was when my grandma died. i got to see my other grandma again and it was really emotional. we cried and she kissed me over and over. i really missed my nonnie. i hope i can see her more often.
i also saw my other cousin that i rarely saw growing up. we didn't talk much, but she was telling me about how i used to have the coolest toys when i was little and was envious of all of my sailor moon stuff. it's funny, because i always thought she was the one who had all the cool toys! she had pretty pretty princess! but i guess when you're a kid, you always get amazed when you get to play with new stuff you don't own right? i remember always wanting to hang out with her because it was a rarity, and now she's even more far away and foreign to me. familial ties are hard and painful for me, because nostalgia is painful. i think that's why i usually gravitate towards bonds that aren't bound by blood.
i always feel like a time capsule. everyone tells me "you haven't changed a bit!" even when it's been 5, 10, 15 years since i last saw them. it's true. all of those childish things everyone long left behind, like toy collecting and watching cartoons are things that have always stuck with me. i never grew out of the things i liked. i'm not ashamed of my peter pan syndrome, but it does feel strange to watch everyone grow up and change while i still like the same things i did when i was six-years-old and going to that house again. my tia told me she's still there and told me to come over anytime, which brought me some comfort. but even if i do visit, it's not like i can ever go back in time. it was bittersweet.
speaking of peter pan syndrome, i've been thinking a lot about how my grandpa told me during his hospital stay that he wants me to learn how to drive. it's definitely embarrassing that i don't know how to at my big age, but the circumstances just weren't there i suppose. my little sister learned how to drive and was given a car right away since there's no bus service where my mom and her husband lived and she had to drive herself to school. the public transit in my inner city is pretty awful, but at least it exists. it's been my main mode of transport for 17 years now since a car was too expensive for me to bother saving up for. it was kind of a vicious cycle, since a car would mean access to better paying jobs, and more opportunities to vend outside of my city, but i could never afford to be bogged down by a car payment, insurance, and maintenance. i loathe car dependency with a passion, but that's a whole other topic i won't get into.
actually, the car my grandpa drives now was supposed to be mine. the car that used to be my grandma's became his and then the transmission went out, so my sister gave him her car after she got a new one that was completely her own. it's totally trashed now, hahaha. my sister said she was upset at the state of the car at the moment; busted back trunk, dirty and grimy and sticky, exposed wires, and no working a/c. i don't think my grandpa has ever had working a/c in any of his cars for my whole 32 years of living, and it's one reason why i almost never ask for a ride. i don't know what she expected really, that's always how he's been and any gift you give him will inevitably end up in a similar state. so don't get him anything expensive!
back to the main topic here. my mom only tried to teach me how to drive once, and i was freaking out pretty badly. i definitely need to go to driving school. but i realized there's another reason why i haven't bothered to learn how to drive, and it's because as long as i don't know how to, it's one less responsibility for me. i can see it now... i would have to drive my grandpa and i to get groceries, to run his errands, to all of his appointments. by myself. alone. in a car that stains my clothes and has no working a/c. by not knowing this skill, i shield myself from another load. as it is, everyone dropped off in support as soon as grandpa finished his antibiotics. i'm not bitter about it, just sad. i don't want to talk to my mom anyway. that day she yelled at me on the way to one of grandpa's appointments, something inside me permanently shattered and i realized i really can never trust her and i need to keep my distance for my peace of mind.
