It's that time again
It's a whole different atmosphere now. Evie and I are stuck at home together most of the time, and I am glad we moved into this house prior to the pandemic. I can't imagine sheltering down at the old place. Far more room to stretch out here. Private, deep back yard. Easier to take walks without coming in close contact with others.
I've been doing the shopping, waiting until it absolutely must happen and stocking up, to limit how often I'm risking contact. She's working from home. I'm simply not working, not since March 13th when public schools abruptly closed and the center suddenly had no foreseeable need for bus runs. A week later, Animal Crossing came out, and most of my social circle apart from D&D were playing. It's been my primary social outlet, though more than three months in I am tired of it as routine. But then, it has contributed to my creative needs. I sculpted the island into a giant, single image, and I started a ridiculous YouTube channel focused on it. This prompted me to learn to use YouTube as a content creator, as well as various tools for video editing and effects and animation. My brother recorded theme music which he contributed under his pen name.
I have put in some work on my game, too. When I made time to return to the endeavor, I found that it would take time to reacquaint myself with the story development, so I instead focused on technical elements that I'd essentially marked "DO THIS LATER" such as sound and visual effects. I managed to craft an intentionally disorienting animation for the quote-unquote time travel sequences, and I surprised myself by being able to add it to global function calls without the entire thing breaking on me. I've also been using my music software to create sound effects and, of course, music. Though I'm not sure if any of the songs I've mixed down will be useful in the project, I am getting much better at using the software to create things that don't sound terrible.
The decision to cancel the annual family fishing trip was difficult. Well, not the decision itself. But I was terribly conscious of it the entire week we "should" have been there, and the weeks that followed. Not unlike how I'm terribly conscious of what day it is today and whose birthday it is and the abuses she made me suffer. I kept wanting to do things to commemorate that it was supposed to be vacation time, family time. But the best I could do was buy a few different foods than usual and call my parents. There is some delight in the idea that we could take a fall trip this year instead. I don't believe for one minute that it will happen, but I cherish the possibility.
I'm also greatly thankful I took my spontaneous seventh trip to Japan last October, as had I not, I'd be squirming in my chair over how long it had been and how idle I feel. I managed to go without alerting my brother, attending his Halloween party (to which I was invited) in costume and then revealing my identity. This meant flying in Friday, staying a night at a hotel, and traveling north by train Saturday with all my things (and costume) and without any outside assistance. Though thank you to Dan who met me at the airport and took me to dinner. I did all the traveling on my own, but I did at least have a friendly face to greet me. I continue to look over the maps of the train lines I prepared for myself so I was fully equipped information-wise, and I smile. I did this, and he had no idea I was doing it. That said, we agreed that I would never do this again since the visits are a lot more fulfilling when he's also able to prep on his end. I did have a lot of time for shopping, though! So much shopping and browsing that I couldn't imagine doing today.
And so, here I am. D&D has concluded for the summer. We made the transition to online play, which is fine for playing the game (and we invested a LOT into our characters and their epilogues this time), but the social connection wasn't as strong. We did meet in person for the final session. That is, those of us who had been able to shelter and limit exposure to risk met up... but it ended being that everyone showed up. That was thirteen days ago. I've been counting the days to make sure. I believe I am in the clear. I finally got to reveal that my goblin, Bobeg Nops, was named what he was for it being a famous cartoon character spelled backwards. No one had caught on in eight months. My long con, as they put it, was celebrated. I told this story to my mom over the phone, and at mention of his name she IMMEDIATELY thought to reverse it. She knows me well.
Evie has the day off today, being that the Fourth is a Saturday. Our anniversary is Sunday, which we usually celebrate by eating out and/or seeing a movie, but we will most likely get takeout and maybe watch something on Disney+. Such is life, today. I expect I'll work a bit on my game today, record an episode for my video series, and watch a few shows to take my mind off of the date and how you treated me and the world at large. As always, I wish you well, but nowadays instead of wondering about your well-being, I find that I wonder whether those around you are suffering at all. It's not easy accepting the things you cannot change, but I've gotten better at making sure I'm taking care of myself as well as others. Small victories. Meanwhile, there are very real problems people are facing where I -can- devote myself to enabling change, and I pay a lot more mind to those.