i spent yesterday with my boyfriend going to see a movie at this cool art-noveau style theatre, this indie movie (?) called the holdovers. recent release but set in the 1970s and was projected on 35mm. it was really good, very fitting movie seeing myself as a person who spends most of her holidays alone or with a severely dysfunctional family. i wont spoil too much just go watch it if you have the chance, it's a holiday movie but its not dumb or cheesy, its emphathetic. i loved the teenage protagonist, it reminded me a LOT of my own boarding school experience except, i was much more of a quiet goody-two-shoes.

oh and, i forgot to mention, last weekend i went to a dante's inferno play. i liked it, the acting was pretty entertaining and it was informative. my bf and i went to get sushi/drinks afterwards, i forgot what really nice fancy food tastes like! it was delicious. we considered that our "thanksgiving dinner" LOL. i'm not really one who likes a ton of involved cooking, i do like short 30-1hr dinners, not all-day cooking marathons. so it fits.

i've started calling my boyfriend my fiance in public. pretty certain i want to get married. maybe after i finish my degree and get my first job working in tech.

what else... i've been writing a story. new comic coming soon! here's one the character designs. man i've been trying with pip/maya but.... i dont have the confidence yet. i'm gonna continue to make smaller, short stories until i can do something like pip/maya right. i just feel very intimidated narratively. so i need more 'sandbox' ideas im not afraid to mess up and have critiqued harshly.

school has been very very boring. but like i said before to be bored is a privilege. my current class is mind numbing corporate mumbo jumbo i really dont care to learn. my career goals involve a job that is so routine and consistent u could set a clock to it. i dont care about money as long as it's able to provide me a humble, comfortable living. if i dont have to sweat every time i swipe my credit card or start feeling a little under the weather, i've made it.

so much of my life the last three years specifically has been fucking chaotic. exhausting chaos, always between jobs, traveling to places, trying different things to carve me a path out of chaos and misery and into one of peace. partly has to do with mindset yes but it's easier said than done when youre living off a single meal a day and doing backbreaking physical and emotional labor.

starting to settle into relative sense of ease and peace. things are more routine now. i like the coworkers at my cashier job. recently my boss has started giving me shifts at the bakery, which i REALLY love. its sooo peaceful. i wish i could do bakery the majority of the time but they need me as a cashier more often. zero stress, i talk to people about cakes and price them then they go on their way.

when i make things centric to myself i am missing out on what i can observe and see around me. because i'm just a very small part of a larger contigous thing. thats something thats been repeated to me but i haven't had the resources to integrate it. even tomorrow, when i'm pushing buttons and i've lost all active thought regarding myself, my feelings and identity. basically ego death happens when i bag groceries. sometimes it follows me home. i used to think about myself a lot. but now there is nothing, just the things that surround me, i am outside of them.

i still think about people i've known and how my idealizations of who they are and how they feel about me is so far from the truth. people who love you, even the ones closest to you, think about you very little. because it's impossible for them to think about you more often than not, thatd be too heavy a burden. a lot of people crave lightness and freedom.

i crave lightness. letting go of things and being alone. entrenching myself in things and the pain of pulling myself out of them is worse to me than the coldness and air that surrounds one who is uninvolved. it comes naturally to me, i shy away from engagements. i go inside myself a lot. but i like it admittedly. i think the tortrous feeling came from this expectation to not like it. i was driven crazy by expectations. but misssed experiences? it's not really a feeling i relate to anymore.

the grocery store one is significantly more depressing, haha. it's flurocent lit and i'm dealing with a more general customer base instead of jsut people my age, so i get more rude people. i actually really like my boba tea job, it's a shame i can't get more than 15 hours at it. but this is how it is i guess. it does go by fast, and i also like seeing the different kinds of food since its a worldwide import store. so sometimes after work i bring home some interesting new snack or treat for my bf and i to try, with employee discount. and even though its fluorecent lit, atleast i can see trees outside, unlike if i worked at a gas station or soemthing. also, my coworkers are very sweet people. very patient and sincere, compared to my boba tea job where theyre a bit aloof and cold. one showed me her halloween costume which was a... rave nun? creative lol.

so i am trying to count my blessings. cuz last week i was freaking out about not being able to pay bills. at the cost of much more of my time, well, i alleivate one suffering and replace it with another. it's unavoidable isnt it? most of the time. life feels like that. youre trading in one weight on the scale for another. its just a different shape, quantity or color.

i haven't devoted very much time to art. unforuntately i realize, i will have to put aside my hobbies for a while. to focus on school. cuz i'm getting too old to be a drifter at min wage jobs like this. i've gotta fix up my shit and get a """real job""" so i dont have knee problems and back problems. or i end up homeless due to inflation and the wage gap. :(

i've been thinking about reasons for doing it. what would i give up art for? if hypothetically, i had to trade my ability to draw or burn the entierity of my lifes work for something, then for what? i remind myself, i'd do it for my boyfriend. i'd do it for my mom. i'd do it so, i can be a person my friends can come to for material support. so i can provide support to others. i'd do it so i can make sure i can provide my pets good vet care. even if we live in a system where we are given scraps and we hoard scraps. i hate being a dog who hoards scraps from those who have even less.

i'd do it to give myself a chance at a better life, to travel, to live in a nice place, to have a routine schedule where i leave my work at work and then come home to a relaxing evening instead of one where i continously study. i guess also, cause i just like working with computers. i mildly enjoy what i study. certainly i expect to enjoy it more than any other path hypothetically taken-- like when i was considering going into nursing (thank god i didnt go through with that.)

so i have to leave art alone for a while. i'll miss it dearly, a part of myself will certainly be missing, but i cant put it before food on the table. i feel a dissonance between my real life and my ideals. i don't read about the things i geniunely care for, i'm not spending much time with the things i really love. i'm fighting, i'm fighting all the time. fighting for the right to eat. because i have to. but i also want to.

i think i'm gonna leave my pip and maya stuff alone for a while. whenever i finish a draft, and i start drawing the pages, it all feels too forced. like internally, i know i don't want to do it. and its not because i dont think i have the capacity to, i do, i've written a short comic prior. it's not laziness or procrastination either, i've worked on ambitious things and have geniunely looked forward to the challenge even when it scares me. but i think i just dont relate to the character designs anymore, like theyre sort of chasings of childhood nostalgia or a certain aesthetic preference instead of something i am interested in bringing to life. and for reaons i wont get into, by drawing it i think i wouldn't be enabling myself to grow and move on from certain things, due to some of the real life experiences the world is inspired by. it doesn't feel like writing or drawing about them would be a release, as i've done for works previously, it feels like i would be indulging in the past excessively.

it's time for me to let go. i've got to let go of lots of different things. i'm holding too many attachments to the past, idealisms, people in my life, resentments even my own sense of self. i can't force myself into a previous identity just because its more comfortable. i've got to acknowledge, i don't like certain things i used to fawn over anymore, i've changed. i used to watch lots of anime and cartoons--- nowadays sparsely aside from the classics like miyazaki or tezuka. i tried reading some comics recently-- krazy kat, kin-der-kids, so on. manga too, i finished YKK recently and loved it! though i love the illustrations, i think i dont feel the urge to make comics in the same way. moreso, i want to make illustrations that hold stories on their own when you look at them for a long time. that is appealing to me. there is a difference between what you want to create and what you enjoy. i enjoy watching older movies, i've been watching some classic hitchcock films recently, but i feel zero urge to make them! and that's okay.

yeah, i still have this idea in my head that, i'm still this teenage nerdy girl who loves anime and videogames. for some reason, my self image hasn't caught up with me yet, despite my life habits being totally different. in my day to day when i'm not working or studying, i like reading books, watching old movies, looking at art on pinterest and discovering/reading more about the new artists i find on there. i like identifying birds, plants, going on walks, riding my bicycle, being active through running or at my job. i'm eating better-- not great or *super* healthy (limited to foot pantry) but i eat my greens and don't drink 12 sodas a day anymore basically, i'm conservative about my sugar intake. i'm outgoing and jovial around strangers. i'm not the socially anxious, cyncical reculse i used to be. the girl who would puke in bathrooms she was so anxious about being seen. i'm a woman now! more self confident too. yeah, it's a good thing.

but i almost can't recognize myself. it's strange, i'm not used to that. i used to be this hopelessly depressed NEET girl, reliant on others for everything from mental health to finances, no sense of independence nor craving. but i'm so much more independent now, i'm able to take care of myself. i still get sad sometimes, i cry fairly frequently still i think because, being sensitive to my own emotions is part of my personality. i dont think its a bad thing though or an impediment like it used to be, or a self indulgence, i'm just processing my own emotions usually.

i've had lots of people i would think to trust abandon me over the years, promising to take care of me, love me, keep me safe. but nobody will ever put your health above their own, and that is so common and natural it is sort of pointless and almost egotistical to expect anything more. cause youre getting into the realm of the supermoral. ultimately i will always be fending for myself... no matter how much someone claims to love me.

and to claim to love someone is such a bold claim. it means you know how to love yourself, it means you can juggle your own problems while also taking on theirs. but i think when people say they love you it means they want to try to invest *something* into you. buying you a meal, giving you a hug, having a good conversation. nobody can make as big of a commitment as, nothing terrible will happen to you. i mean, they will claim to, but because they don't know what it means to devote so much, and how terrifying it can be to put yourself at stake just so you can share your resources with another, its inevitable they will abandon.

i used to be angry at those people, i used to be sad, i said why me, why does everyone abandon me, but its never really about me. it's always a universal problem caused by, primitive individual desire to self-preserve. to escape that for a moment, i think those people were able to love me for a moment. but then they realized how scarce time is, their health, their money. how they can't give it all up for, this deadbeat 20 something year old woman, this washed up prodigy, once upon a time a heiress, now a poverty striken vagabond. i still love those people somewhere in my heart. i feel love because i know what its like to feel scared.

but in turn, late at night, i am angry, vengeful, wounded. i want to scream and scratch the walls, bang my head until it bleeds, i want to claw into my sides so i can escape this flesh vessel that holds me hostage to keep breathing, keep eating, know the lurking threat of age, pain, illness, misery. i want to go home, i want to go home into my mom and dads arms and see smiles that are geniune and welcoming. to eat pasta and clams at the table together, see the dogs are hovering under the table for scraps. when i'm full i go upstairs to my old bedroom with it's floral quilted bedding, its high ceiling, the window that overlooks a forest, the leaves making a caressing song i fall asleep to.

sometimes i look back on it though and i still can't trade it all for now. because right now only through acknowledgement of my pain and the threats that face me, am i able to know what is important and what i need. i love my boyfriend, i love my cats, i love living in my own place. i want to keep these things. everything, even my art, which i formerly held as my greatest passion, must come secondary. i couldn't put it before my attachments, i dont want to. i'd rather keep my cats... they're like my babies. (but, like, actually. i'm not saying that to be cute. i cried when i was 7 because i found out i couldn't be pregnant with kittens. lol.)

only half a face cause he was eating feed out of a bucket... above him is the body of a camel who moved away too quick for me to finish

more scrawls of a zebra.

a sleeping lion and a profile of a family member.

i dont remember what this animal was called... i wish i could remember it's name. some kind of bovine or ox? from east asia...