Sam's Reading Page

My entire weekend was a blur, if not an entirely unpleasant one. On Friday, during a glance at my phone at work, I saw an ad for an exhibition of light art in Shinjuku-Chuo Park that was on through 5/31. Since I actually had a full weekend, and I hardly ever do anything out of the ordinary, I decided to go, even though going through Shinjuku Station makes me feel misanthropic, depressed, and enraged fro a bit nearly every time.

I keep thinking about how I know I don't want to be in Japan for the rest of my life but that I did so want to be back here for five years until I got back here... two years ago. Time is going by so quickly, and I feel like I shouldn't waste it. On the other hand, I am stuck doing everything I ever do alone, but the thought of cultivating a more active social life -- or a more active anything, really -- sounds like it might finish killing me.

The light thing was really cool.

I feel like that in a few years, I will probably look back on this time in my life with nostalgia. I would like to have certain things I did to even feel nostalgic for. So, I don't regret going to the thing, but I was one of the only people there who wasn't on the clock or whatever who was just... alone.

I talked to my dad a bit while seated in a place that wasn't obtrusive. Then, I went home and went to bed.

Saturday was chill, but I mostly did laundry and slept with a little bit of Genshin Impact co-op with my best friend.

I remember a time when I used to get on Genshin almost every single day, but I cannot figure out how I had the energy to do that. I guess it was because I was getting home at 5:00 or before back then.

On Sunday, I went to church, because I had kind of committed myself to trying to go to this Grief Small Group ting that started the week before. I didn't go the first week, even though I went to church, because I wasn't sure where it was meeting and was too shy and nervous to ask strangers even though I hung around and spoke to people for their Pentecost potluck thing they had.

I think the Grief Small Group was good for me, even if it added to the reasons I felt like I had barely had time at home, and my introvert battery was running on a half-charge from jump this week.

At the meeting, I spoke a little about why I had come there, and I immediately burst into tears. They were really sympathetic, and I got some support but also managed not to make everything about myself.

The thing is, I miss my mom, but my grief for her is more about the fact that even though I know I still love her and she loved me very much and even though I know there are other people who love me, there is very little tangible evidence anymore that anyone loves me back in the whole world. Like, I feel like I show up for people and grant grace and patience, but I don't have anyone to just... hide in anymore. No one who would come after me because I'm crying anymore. No one who will tolerate my being selfish for even a moment without it earning me silence.

Anyway.

As of this week, I've started catching the 7:04 bus again instead of the 6:44 bus. It's only a difference of 20 minutes, but it seems to add a significant amount to my true sleep time at night. Whatever was causing the serious delays in the mornings last year seems to have become less common. They're building some type of pedestrian overpass walkway thing right before one reaches the bridge into Tokyo, and I don't really know why this impacted morning traffic, but I wondered if it was involved somehow. They seem to be reaching a different stage of the project now, where it is much more obvious what they're doing.

My Death Note fic is getting steady engagement on AO3! Which is great and all I can hope for as a fan writer. However, I find that posting after I have written most of the fic makes the success and such feel a little bit more distant and surreal since the emotional investment of writing the thing was months ago.

Now, I'm getting to the point where I have to finish writing the very end of it, so maybe that will bring the immediacy back, but I just wish that there were a reliable way to post a finished WIP as an adult without prewriting most or all of the fic, because sometimes the back-and-forth is the magic. I dunno.

Anyway, I didn't even update the fic until just after midnight on Sunday-becoming-Monday, which is the latest update I've done. I've just been doing "one chapter per weekend" unless I feel like something different.

So I got through work yesterday still feeling totally drained and dead. I did hop on Genshin and manage to grind enough to just BARELY roll for Durin when I realized he was available when I did co-op with my best friend on Saturday.

This coming Saturday, I have to work, so I was pretty sure I was going to either randomly call in a day this week or leave early one day. The thing is, I take my work very seriously. I want to do a good job by the students, even if there's a lot of fluff I think is bullshit.

I have on-the-day called out once in the entire time I've worked there. And I feel like that's actually pretty unusual and remarkable given the fact that I feel called in to sub for people all the time. I was actually incredulous and amazed when there was a post in the substituting Slack channel that didn't tag me on Monday, which feels like a very strange mix of both "they notice how hard I'm working" and cynicism.

Anyway, turns out, I didn't have to fight with the mixture of "but I'll miss a class" guilt, because they decided to close the school tomorrow. It sounds like a lot of area schools are closing but being all like "but other schools won't close, we're being so overly cautious and kind!!!"

They're doing it as a "home study" day so it still counts as an instructional day, so we were allowed to not come in, but we had to use PTO / Flex Time Hours to actually do so. Luckily, tomorrow is my new-fangled half-day so I was able to use fewer hours than I would have otherwise.

I have never well-prepared for disaster here in Tokyo. I know most people have a go-bag and stuff, but I honestly think if it got that bad I would either have to find a random stranger to follow around or just hunker down and do my best. I don't really have anyone I would call on to drag myself to anymore, and I don't know how to even find out where to evacuate to.

But I think this situation is just going to be some nasty weather in the middle of the night and likely transit delays tomorrow that would've made having a normal school day a pain in the butt.

I talked to a couple of kids today in passing, and one told me about how he really wants to ride his bike through the puddles tomorrow after the rain is gone.

I went and got a big bottle of water and figure if I get the motivation I might fill some of my need-to-be-rinsed-and-stripped 16 oz bottles with water. I have a few soyjoy bars and such. Ready to microwave rice that could be eaten cold if things were dire. I don't think I would die if it were just a matter of waiting for power for a few days.

I really hope it doesn't come to that.

There's a sad, evil little part of my heart that doesn't even want to fight that hard if some disaster happened. I don't want to die, like at all. I just... get really tired of trying to survive (in a metaphorical way) when I feel like apart from my utility as a teacher, I wouldn't really be noticed-missing or whatever.

I tried to catch up on my Reading page a bit. I need to get a better attention span, just like everyone else. I did pop in on a few people's personal posts.

I have creative energy but not enough real energy to do anything.

Thankfully, tomorrow I finally get a rest day during which I have no particular reason to convince myself to go out of the house to do errands, chores, church, or anything else.

Pictures from Friday night under the cut.

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And here's a link to a video of a neat, musical light thing they had that I got a great angle to film despite there being people everywhere.