#why don't landlords just install this very basic thing

[dzpenumbra]

4/15/23

Today was pretty cool. It was really warm out for the second day in a row. I found myself doing more animation work. Like... 3 hours straight after yoga. Like... I woke up, did yoga, got food and coffee and just immediately started working. And I had to stop myself because it was just too nice out.

I showered, put on shorts and a sleeveless shirt for the first time in ages, and went for a walk. I found a "nature trail" about a block away from my place. It's not much, but there are actual woods there, so... can't really complain. It made me miss the river back near my old place. But it's right on a river itself, so it's cool in its own right. There were lots of downed trees, lots of wood around. It started sparking inspiration... Lots of clearings, too. I'm really tempted to do another nature installation. This one is a much higher trafficked area. I also was inspired to maybe see if I could gather natural wood over there and bring it back for carving and building basic furniture. Could be cool. It's just a bit of a walk to be hauling big pieces of wood.

I did about a half hour walk, maybe less. It was nice though. Just put in the AirPods and popped on my shoes (which is very foreign to me for hiking, usually I just go barefoot and no headphones, but... city... you know?) and went for it. I even ordered a pizza for delivery before heading out, so I would have dinner not long after getting home. But man, these Doordash fees are getting fucking ridiculous, I swear. Fees, fees and tip like... doubled the price. Shits getting out of control.

There's a bird singing outside my window. It's very confusing. I just got a super strong urge to rush to bed, because that sound when I physically feel like this is like... 99% of the time indicative that it is dawn and I'm up too late again. Something must be upsetting it or something. I wish I knew birdcalls better, this one is super familiar but I don't know what bird it is. I'm gonna look up the usual suspects. Welp, I even installed an app and had no luck. I'll have to figure it out some other time when it's not 3:45 AM. Weird. Maybe it happens often and I just didn't notice because this is the first night my window is actually open...

It was nice to get out. I was only anxious anticipating, really. There were two moments when I was a little anxious out ther, when I was first approaching the woods, because... what if I get mugged or whatever. But someone else went in on a walk ahead of me, and he didn't look sketchy so... it was all good, I guess. And then taking a different trail out of the woods, again, anxious about being alone and getting mugged. I swear, I'm just obsessed with this. It's like my only fucking fear. I get these intricate anxious narratives like "they're gonna pull a gun on you and make you give them your keyfob, then tell them what building you live in and what unit, and they're gonna go clean you out. All your precious possessions, the only relics of your past, all filtered into the most important and meaningful things after the move, those that can be flipped for cash will be gone forever." So, what did I do with that anxiety? I went... "okay... well... if that happens... I'll just call my landlord and tell them what happened, and go from there. I mean, if that were to happen, I have a description of the person and I know exactly where they're going... And I'm a block away from a police station." It worked pretty well.

It's so odd. When my landlords back in my old area told me there was someone confirmed robbing houses in my neighborhood, in a place without a police presence... I didn't really have that much anxiety.

Oh shit... I know what it is. I didn't even have to type "I don't know why..." I figured it out way quicker. I had a dog back then. I had my other half, my German Shepherd. I was good. That's what changed. Fuck. That made my heart sink.

I miss my girls a lot.

So yeah, I guess that's why I'm so anxious lately, specifically about home security. Like... I was never afraid of people robbing me when I went out walking with my dog... and, oddly... I wasn't even afraid of people robbing me when she wasn't even with me. I just feel much more alone and vulnerable without her having my back and holding down the fort. Wow... fuck... it's gonna be a year since she passed soon. Wow. That went by real fast. Fuck, man. Just like a month and a half.

On the plus side, being around people didn't freak me out. They were all like... normal. College kids. Some mid-20's chicks dressed up and going out for drinks. People walking their dogs. Other people out for a walk. No crazy hobo with a shank trying to steal my phone. No one shooting up heroin behind a tree. No gangster with a gun trying to jack my AirPods and get access to my building. Just people.

In fact, seeing college kids standing in a group on a bridge really brought me back to when I was in college. Back in the Obama administration... The first one, I think... And I empathized, and it made me kinda remember that level of comfort in public. It's been a long time. It's been a long time since I was part of a group of peers. That feeling just feels so far out of reach for me. I don't feel like I'm like anyone around me.

I'm in my... I guess technically late-30's now. I'm single, never married - in hindsight, thank god, given my ex... No kids. I live alone. I'm an artist, and I have no idea how to integrate that into society, and I am way too stubborn and obsessed with my process to really figure it out. I struggle to leave my apartment. Hell, now that I say that part, maybe there are people like me around... and I'd have no idea, because either I don't leave my apartment, or they don't leave theirs!

I was walking over by the river and kinda... turned a camera back on myself. I do that sometimes in my head, like in a video game when you go idle and the camera goes 3rd person and swings around in cinematic mode? And I looked at myself. In the awkward phase of going from a shaved head to growing out hair (doctor's orders), at least an inch long beard now, sleeveless metal band t-shirt, camo shorts, tattoos, hemp jewelry with stones and beads, skate shoes. Walking with crappy posture, but actively trying to straighten my back and walk upright, yet relax my shoulders so it's not too obvious. Half for health, half to hide the beginnings of a gut that I have formed for the first time in my life.

And I ask myself... am I the sketchy one? Or am I the cool one? I can't even tell anymore. Or, to others, am I just another dude? I mean, in my head, I feel like I look like I'm in a band or something. Which is cool. I dunno. Lack of perspective makes that a never-ending guessing game.

I just wanted to share that moment, the 3rd person camera moment, because it's sticking with me. I've been doing that a lot lately. There are times when it makes me really self-conscious, and it can be really self-critical, but there are also times when it becomes really... self-affirming. Like "I look really cool today" or something. And it helps me ground in the actuality of my situation, rather than just raw, unrefined, unchecked feelings, assumptions and extrapolations.

As someone who hasn't posted a selfie on social media since 2016... it's very refreshing to look at myself in that way. And very alien.

God... I must be so strange to 90% of you. I haven't had a personal social media account in almost 7 years. Facebook, Insta, Twitter, any of it. Reddit is the only survivor, and I very rarely use it, and haven't posted on it in... probably 4 years? And only in support groups. Never like... status updates and pictures of my vacation or family or whatever. That whole culture is so far away, it's so foreign.

In fact, every time I'm over with my brother (which hasn't happened in a long time, I should check in with them...) they're always breaking out the camera and filming and taking pictures and sending them to tons of people. To the point where the kid is like... trained. He loves the camera, he loves posing and being playful. So when he sees the phone come out and get pointed at him, he gets super excited. That whole culture, that whole idea, it's so... so... foreign. Every time he'd go for a picture it was like... "oh shit, I have to remember how to do this..." And seeing a picture with me in it? After like... that many years?! Dude, my dating profiles have pictures that are embarrassingly old on them, to the point where I'm afraid of coming off as misleading. One from the pandemic was the most recent, one snowskating in 2019, an older one with my cat, shit like that. Because I just... because no one has taken a picture of me in like 5 years. People just... don't take pictures of me, and I don't take pictures of myself. My older brother was the first person to take a picture of me just for the sake of taking a picture since 2018, I think? That shit is depressing.

Okay, huge tangent over because I need to get to bed.

With the project, I figured out the problem with the animation. It was exported at 24 fps instead of 60 so it was running really really fast. So... I went in and adjusted the fps and the time, and then... had some creative ideas. I wanted to add in little tracker balls that basically led ahead and painted the paths. The idea was simple enough and actually pretty easy to execute once I figured out the process. Just opacity fade in, blur effect with an f-curve noise modifier, have it follow the path of the stroke for each path. Easy enough. The only catch was, the stroke build isn't an even build, so I have been timing the ball animation basically frame by frame. For 40 of them. And pretty much most of my day was that. And I still have 60 left. But 1) it looks really cool, 2) it adds a lot to the animation, 3) as I go along, the build speed gets faster, so what was a 100 frame build for one path in the beginning will be a 10 frame build for the last 40 or so.

So... progress! After that, I just need footage from hiking in the woods, which I can apparently do basically in my "backyard" if I so choose... and that other custom animation stuff that's gonna be super time consuming, but I can figure something out. Maybe I can do like... a whiteboard looking thing and just draw my thoughts like I'm brainstorming, rather than making an actual mockup. That might work...

Okay, bedtime.

[shitty-check-please-aus]

genuinely need a dishwasher and washing machine in the next place I move, these are chores that I don’t hate when they’re actually easy to accomplish