Moving

 Smol bean's log. I'm shaking. Things are happening. One of them good. Another uncertain, but leaning towards amazing. I just. SIGH. I want to scream. From euphoria.

LIFE IS GOOD

It is. And I. Ugh. For starters
GOODBYE ORANGE COUNTY.

Good times. Good food. Fuck OC Patrol. Love our friends. We're out.

Where??
We'll still be in SoCal.

We were supposed to stay until mid/end of February, but made the decision to leave now becauuuussseee health risks aren't a grey area. Basically. And other stuff, but that's nail in the coffin.

We're social creatures, and have an instinctual yearning to be around others, so it's easy to understand why people still go out during this pandemic. That was very much the case with one of our housemates, which was fine- up until we learned that the persons he visited were going out to underground bars. They had previously contracted COVID-19. But CONTINUE going to underground bars after the fact. 

Two of them decided to show up to our house unannounced, barged in... without masks... and had the audacity to invite our housemate to join them to go to an underground bar.

[A lot of questions came to mind. He would visit them every week and we would mind our business. This was never brought up, but Chicken and I would put off visiting family for another two weeks every time our housemate went to visit them. We didn't want trouble and wanted to assume they were careful, and that their contracting COVID-19 was an unfortunate, unavoidable happenstance as it is for many others, many of which died from doing do. But that seems to not be the case.]

After they left, apologies were made. The entire time they were downstairs, we were hiding in our room discussing moving out ASAP due to the fact that they weren't asked to mask up or leave. Not only did they get COVID-19 and spread it in their family, but they seem to be under the impression that because they've already had it, they can't get it again and spread it.

OPINION PIECE:
That was the dumbest fucking thing I've had to tolerate in several years. What stupid, inconsiderate, rude, unbelievably disgusting people. Zero foresight, zero manners or respect for our property, for the people who live here, zero fucking maturity or understanding of the risks they contributed to and bring with them. Fucking unreal.

RANDOM RANT:
When we first moved in, one night when they were here, one of them came up and opened the door to our room while I was asleep on the bed. Irrelevant context; they used to live here. Idk what made him think that was okay. The only reason we knew he did that was because Chicken set up one of the cameras I got him in his room with a motion sensor for the door. When he opened it, Chicken got an alert on his phone. I was livid and felt gross. What if I had been wearing intimates? Or nothing at all? Boundary fucking crossed. From that moment forward, I absolutely wanted nothing to do with the one dude, and the other 2 I just didn't like. Turns out my gut feeling steered me correctly. Even though I was seething, their behavior also wasn't the least bit surprising. They are walking stereotypes.
    
When the subject of why we were leaving came up, I wanted to elaborate, but didn't feel like debating the value of our health and residency, or listening to any kind of defense of their actions or mentality. Like I said, there's zero grey area for this. I don't give a shit enough to argue about it or make my point. So we gave other reasons, which were all true. But a part of me feels he knew the real one that weighed in the most.
    All things considered, he's still our friend. I just feel the lack of boundaries and consideration for the rest of us are concerning- normally I wouldn't give a shit.. but we're involved. As are our family members. So I have to care. Actions speak louder. We're moving out. The end.


REGARDLESS, I'M EXCITED FOR THE MOVE ^_^

Living near work HQ was great, but always felt temporary. Chicken got vacuum bags. That was oddly satisfying to do lol. That fat one is Chicken's trillion shirts. He came across this one in his closet

The only time I've ever seen that shirt worn publicly was when Morheim wore it. This is an ancient relic that must be treasured... because there's no way a design like that would ever fly these days.

Man, I'm usually a slow reader but I've been burning through these books I got for Christmas. Already finished 2 this month. That's unheard of. It usually takes me several weeks. Otsuichi's too weird to put down. I'm still not at the read 8 hours straight level, nor do I think I ever want to be... that's a lot of time that I'm not doing anything else, but I feel better. Because I genuinely enjoy reading, I just get too antsy and if my mind isn't getting utterly rekt, I lose interest. Otsuichi's a good mind fuck.

I'm reading Venus In the Blind Spot now. I already know it's gonna be a mind fuck. Thank you Junji Ito, sir. In February, there's a book club in the Kowabana discord server that's reading Dark Water. Seeing as how that was one of my Christmas gifts, I wanna join them in discussion. It's the first time I'd be partaking in anything like that. We'll see if I actually contribute lol

I'm gonna miss Tasty Garden.

SO ... since I suck at the artsy stuff, I'm trying to push myself to do more artsy stuff. Here's one of those things.
This took me forever.

Looooots of erasing. Because I can't fathom proportions. I have to guesstimate HARD where I think a shoulder would go, and guess from there. That angle of her face wasn't even deliberate. That was totally just me not knowing proportions and it came out crooked and went with it LOL. Same with her shoulder. Her eyes aren't proportional here, but I added more. Was too lazy to post an update.
It's fan art!  For Sense:  A Cyberpunk Ghost Story. I'm struggling with it a lot, but whatever.

Another thing... I'm really enjoying journaling now. I have several journals, all of them gifts. And I think the most I ever used the top two for were for decoding the terminal word puzzles in Fallout 4.

But I'm getting more comfortable with it. The layout is ugly and simple, but I drew in a calendar for January. That was hard because I couldn't fathom the spaces or where the blocks would go.

7 days of the week, 7 blocks. You'd think that'd be easy, right? Wrong. It was really hard for me. I couldn't split them up evenly, even with a ruler. So eventually I just eyeballed it, erased, eyeballed, erased, for like ever. But I'm glad I did it, because it's been extremely helpful.

My journal has become like... central command of my brain. I always wanna check in with it, write something down, look things over, cross stuff off... it's soothing to my nature of visual...ness. lol. Idk how to describe it. I'm a visual learner. Which is weird because I can't picture images well, but hands on-seeing stuff laid before me is the most effective for me to absorb information.

Like, I get teased for this a lot but I don't retain street names or numbers. I only know my way around by landmarks and street patterns. I think San Francisco was the only city that I was able to install the street names and stuff into my mind- but I attribute that to the city being a literal grid, and taking the train and bus everywhere before I had a car.

Anyway, yeah. Journaling! Drawing! Clay stuff! Reading! Moving!
phew

Once we get settled in, I'll feel a lot better about artsy stuff. A work space away from my desktop would be really nice.

Oh yeah, Lifa got lucky and pulled his waifu in Genshin.

I still haven't pulled Qiqi  :'(
I need her. Hu Tao is rumored to be an upcoming playable character. She's a funeral director.
There are no words. I just. I need them both.

Speaking of funeral director...

SIGH. This talisman is working for me. I'm in high spirits. So far, really good start to the new year for us. And end of last year, too. We're counting our chickens. But so far... I'm just... I'm.. Stuff is good. Stuff is really good. Next week... next week, man. Aaaahhhhhhh. I. Can't. Divulge. Furthur. But classes start on Monday. My Mandarin is gonna get good. It will. It has to. Being fluent in 3 languages just sounds... so cool.

That said, I wanna share something I've been really enjoying as of late.

I love water. It's so good. Like, I LOVE water. There's seldom else I ever drink, unless it's like a special time or a treat or whatever. And I have this gallon jug that is always at my desk. I fill it every day. Sometimes I drink the entire thing, sometimes half, whatever. I just like to have water at my reach for the whole day.

Lately... I remembered how at sbux, there'd be these fruit cups. Sometimes, I'd get one and dump the fruit in a trenta cup and fill it with water. Fucking amazing. And so... the frozen fruits we have for smoothies... plus the mint plant we have.. I've been adding fresh mint leaves, strawberries, and mangoes to my gallon jug of water. And I can't stop drinking it. It's DELICIOUS.

If you suck at watering yourself, make that shit taste good by putting fruits in it. I've tried lemon and whatever, but much prefer the sweet/tart infusions. And the mint is just mmpf. BOUJEE WATER FOLKS. It's amazing. Fresh mint is really strong, so this whole gallon would've been fine with 3 leaves, but I'm extra and put 4.
Once I find the perfect roses to grow, absolutely assume that I will put rose petals in my water. Strawberry and rose water. Yes m'am.

Chicken's mom wanted to come down and help us move T_T ahhhh. She's so sweet. But yeah, no. Noooo. We have so much packing to do still lol. All of our (my) dumb decorations and stuff. HO BOY.

Well. That concludes our segment, ladies and gentlemen. I say farewell to Orange County and hello other happy stuff! :D



HI
HAPPY FRIYAY
Be considerate and not shitty. Wear a mask
Drink many waters
Tell your loved ones you love them
Hokay bye