- Memorial Day weekend was quite dreary here. It rained every day of it, and the forecasts are predicting daily rain showers for the next week or so. No wonder Mississippi has such humid summers! It is better than last year's Memorial Day holiday though. Instead of gloominess and rain, it was a series of storms that cut the power here 3 days in one week! I do miss the cheerfulness of a sunny day, so I do hope it changes soon. I also think this marks the end of pullover season for me. I will look forward to oversized sweaters in October, but for now, wearing them will be probably unbearable! I am excited for berries, summer dresses, watermelon, sparkling water, and cooking outside.
- I finished the story for Pokopia recently and boy was I bawling! It was so so sad and the Pokemon are so so sweet in this game. I've spent my postgame trying to get the Pewter City museum excavated and gradually patching up the S.S. Anne. It really is a fun game! I played Animal Crossing on the 3DS and I played New Horizons during the pandemic (like so many others), but I got bored and felt getting resources and the process for creating was too expensive and slow. Pokopia seems generous where Animal Crossing is stingy so though I thought I wouldn't enjoy it, I've sunk in a lot of hours without even realizing! I probably will continue to just play it until Fire Emblem drops later this year! I always sink 300+ hours in each FE game haha. I end up finishing a playthrough and wanting to try new strategies.
- Otherwise, most of my focus has been work, family, and some knitting. I made my Christmas socks early this year (a pair for my MIL, another two for my partner's aunt and uncle). Yesterday I cast on Hermione's Everyday Socks for me! It's a lovely creamy heather with tweed flecks (Stroll Tweed). I love the Stroll base because it's very soft and fluffy. It blooms prettily, and I especially like the heathers/tweeds for textured patterns like the Hermione's one. I think after this I'll cast on some tank tops. Jesse Meade and Jaq Cieslak have some super cute ones and I wanted to try making a garment with some cotton blends.
- I've not been reading much lately. I noticed I tend to binge the first third of the year, and hit a lull when Spring starts winding down. I know the lull has started because I listlessly search my shelves for something "good", slow down my speed, and start a bunch of stuff and struggle to finish. I think I'll gradually try to finish my started books (which are EIGHT so no more!) and see how it goes.
- I changed a lot in the past year and half. A lot has happened, much of it I explored here. I always struggled with liking myself, because I feel inverted from everyone I know. I am good at what the people around me are not so good at, but in turn, basic things seem very alien and difficult to me. Things that bother me don't bother others, but then I am relaxed about norms that others consider sacrosanct. It got harder through the years to pretend I care about the same things. So I think I regressed in my social skills, but opened my eyes to why I never felt quite right in many settings. I don't know if I like me after these changes. This me is a little sharper and not prone to seek company or sell myself out for it. But I sometimes wish I could go back to being ignorant about things. Because I think that me was more sunny. That me noticed the patterns, but because I couldn't articulate them, there was a lovely hope that next time will be better. But some things did get worse, and I don't foresee them getting better for a long time. And that makes me feel very strong and very weak at the same time.
- Current Obsessions: Pokopia, tweedy yarn, music that sounds like an abandoned mall. Tech commentary videos. Also videos by hairstylists. The moment my hand knit submerges in the water for blocking and the fibers relax.
Was that too opaque? Too threatening? The amount of social cues she had to care about bewildered her.
– John Wiswell (Someone You Can Build a Nest In)
