follow the nightingale

I’ve had this leftover Lindt chocolate sitting in the fridge because it had a light blue wrapper and I thought it was strawberry flavoured chocolate, instead of regular chocolate.

The jellycat feels like silk and it (she?) looks so damn gorgeous and I could bring her when I go travelling and and and

Holy crap

I was so spoiled this year

This resulted in a discussion about the costs of A/C.

Another friend suggested that he knew of an A/C unit that was being donated (if the current A/C wasn't sufficient, maybe another machine would help).

Original friend: "Let me rephrase. We can't afford the costs. As in, the bill for A/C."

*compassionate pause*

and I just had a meltdown.

My computer has been having issues for months - games being laggy, latency, settings (even on medium) straining it, freezing up when I try to alt+tab between applications. I've been slowly volunteering for more shifts to save up money but it is a slow process and I don't always get approved.

I can't get excited about any "new" game anymore because they're just getting more and more demanding. Even the cozy / farming / indie scenario comes out with beautiful looking games and my specs can't handle it...

I know I could "just" go out and buy a new one but all that money gives me so much anxiety and looking at the builds is very overwhelming

Today was the straw that broke the camel's back. Online friend tagged a simulation game and said there was a demo.

The game requires a 1050 GPU at minimum... and my pent-up frustration just broke.

I wore my regular pants and now I'm going to die of heat later LMAO

I was sweating by the time I reached the subway station

And it's supposed to be this humid ALL EVENING

Why OH WHY did I not check??

Language partner beeps me (as promised) at basically dawn (her time) and tells me there's an issue

She had borrowed a Disney account from a friend (as it has Chinese subtitles and audio) but somehow it got signed out by accident and now she can't log back in (maybe the subscription ran out?)

So I ran to Netflix to look up children's films, tried to check out Crave subscription (but then realized it was just on my iPad so I couldn't exactly stream it for her!) and realized I had no idea what was available on Crave in Mandarin (or even if they would have anything?)

She came to my rescue and told me there are Dreamworks films in Mandarin on her end (I guess Chinese is a common subtitle there, like how French + Spanish + Italian are popular subs here) so I guess she's okay with watching an animated film on Netflix as a Plan B.

:D

They're using my old (dead? Not actively in use?) name.

Not even a username. Just my old name.

It's been seven years since I started using my birth name, and two years since it's been legalized just about everywhere.

Literally no one in my social circle knows me by that old name anymore. (Unless you count my parents.)

The video call starts

We greet each other

And half the time I rarely end up using what I wrote in the draft antway

*laughter*

Many of these accounts haven't been updated since 2010. Well over a decade ago. We used to geek about so much: multiple fandoms, the Japanese language, anime, the process of writing and revising.

They just kept posting until one day, they didn't... and never posted again.

I was the only one who stayed, and that was because I didn't have anywhere else to vent about life and because it felt like a huge feat to start all over again.

I wonder how they're doing. I wonder, did they migrate or did they just... not record their lives anymore, at all?

Also, __acquiesce, I hope you're doing okay. I will probably never forget we were supposed to meet IRL and we might've even become friends and then you apologized because you were failing all your courses. We chatted a couple times on AOL but I was very reserved cause I'd never talked to an Asian-Canadian before who had received the family heritage passed down and I didn't want you to know I was whitewashed.

Anyway, week later, you expressed interest in meeting me and HOLY SHIT of course I would love to meet up! and then it turns o ut your life was a wreck, you were failing everything and dealing with insomnia and sneaking into your room to escape into LiveJournal and your dad was threatening to "kick you up" back into shape, and I never heard from you again despite sending the occasional DM to ask if things were okay and did you want to reschedule?

I hope you got out. I wonder if you escaped our little hometown. I wonder if you moved, got a partner and have a happier life now.

And for some reason it was set to Vietnamese...

I woke up early after being out all day yesterday and then I couldn't sleep on time.

I figured I may as well be miserable today, try to sleep earlier and feel not-like-shit for work tomorrow.

I know I was just this scary huge monster to you guys