Society

Yay for 2009! Oh wait, this is the year I turn 30... *weeps quietly in a corner*

Anyway, sis should be back home by now (I'll have to check on her one more time, but she had a meeting to go to almost as soon as she got off the plane.) So I have the apartment to myself. I need days just to recover from how exhausting it was to have a guest for 10 days. It's not that I don't love my sis, we're just very different people.

The more I am away from the Bay Area, the more I realize how much leaving has changed my lifestyle. I just don't think living there will ever be 'home' again. Part of me is sad because I feel that my choices in life will ultimately distance me from my blood-related family entirely.

Well, it's Christmas morning afternoon, and I figured I should write something. I know not everyone celebrates it, so I'll just make this a general Happy Holidays to all, if you're taking a break to spend quality time with family and friends.

I have a few specific holiday messages too (for Eni and Kalli and Selina. Others already got snail mail cards from me, assuming they actually GET there. :O)

There's a lot of people I've kinda been sparing in contact with, and I'm sorry about that. ;.; This last year has been a really introverted time for me, I guess. I just need a lot of time alone. I'm worried that I'm starting to get increasingly asocial and agoraphobic (just don't feel the urge to go out much at all), but that's something I will have to think about more next year.

We're leaving pretty soon to get my sis! Yay!!

Unfortunately it seems she's arriving on one of the coldest days this month. Geez, it's FREEZING even inside. ;.; Doesn't help we have such big windows though, and the finishing touches haven't been done on the frames yet.

Ohoh I had the opportunity to try every one of my games yesterday, too. I have run after posting this (just got call from sis, she'll be here in 2 hours!) but I wanted to post some short impressions, and a bit about other games Jon and I want.

Also, bonus chara artwork! Mostly 'cause I think Selina will appreciate.

Came back with some video games. :O I decided I'd put most of my Christmas money into a game shopping spree. Among other things I have Luminous Arc 2 and Rhapsody for DS, and also Baroque for the PS2. I got the only copy I have EVER seen of Nobunaga's Ambition for PS2, also. :D

I was really indecisive ;.; there are SO many games I want. I think I will go grab Persona 4 too (which Aurora on LJ very kindly reminded me about) and a PS3 game. That's *plenty* of games for the next few months. I tend to actually stockpile them... I'm a bit of a game packrat, but sooner or later I DO play them. ^^:

I keep wondering if I should've just grabbed Persona 4 instead. I was just less inclined to get it right away because it's newer and more likely to still be in stock. (The video game chain around here, Game Buzz, really favors Atlus games for some reason.)

We're going to be away till tomorrow evening-ish.

Going to stay at a hotel for 4th anniversary. (I'm old! o.O) And eat out and all that.

Also, I've been losing weight, I've found. I'm gradually approaching 180. :P But I really need to get back into exercising. In the spring I may lose a great deal if I start that up again. I'm surprised I've still been losing, even if it's only a half a pound a week.

RIN: I couldn't find you at all last night n.n and I kept dying, hehe. So I went and soloed to 12. I probably should try to do quests :P *bad about that* but we should party on Thurs if you want ^^;

Friday is PSU night though, and so is Sat.

See you~! (P.S. Selina, don't worry... I'm not mad at you.)

Meh... no sleep. I feel like crap.

I've been trying to finish up the Christmas cards which I forgot to send yesterday. I have two I am not even sure I'll send. :( one was for Kalli but dumb me just remembered she changed her address, and I don't HAVE the new one. Bleh.

I was gonna send one to Eni but then I thought "wait will her family think it's weird" 'cause the last time I sent a card I had to send it to a different address and now I'm all confused. So I'll just not send it and send something better on her birthday instead.

Cards will be late, anyway :( Honestly, right now I hate life and would be happy to disappear from it. I have this stupid, irrational wish that I could just exist in a reality where I'm the only real person, because other real people trigger my anxiety when I can't figure out what the hell they really think about me and stuff I do.

Hrm. I had originally planned to write some sort of introspective post, but have no idea how to word it. So let's just go for a straight summary.

In the past few days I bought the new Ben Folds album Way to Normal (mini-review at the end of this post), ventured out in the winter cold only twice (for the album and to get groceries) and otherwise mostly sat around a lot. :P I guess winter is just the season for that. I mean, since right now I still don't have school or work.

Oh, and since I didn't write about it before: my bad day a little while back mostly stemmed from me freaking out because I got an email from Concordia saying they required my permanent residency proof before considering my application. As I have a very low trust of the Canadian government in following through with my documentation, I'm now afraid I will get barred from college (along with not being able to get a bank account, or get my passport back.)

So, you can probably see how that could be upsetting for me.

"Historic" because I haven't canceled DR for YEARS, so it feels all epic. :P It's going to be gone after this month (probably around the 22nd). I won't reactivate again for 6 months to a year. So, that's that. No more having to angst over that game for a while.

It's funny because that game is where my most memorable characters came from. Ryshassa, Atmadja, Talliska and Mellauna in particular. One is my iconic empathic healer, the second her fiery and carefree sister, the third my wild-hearted ranger and survivalist, and the fourth my socialite/bureaucrat/bardess and secret agent. But they've all grown beyond their DR roots... most of them through Exalted, in fact, and then through that to something even greater (Anthegenian Cycle, for some of them).

I'm taking Talli with me to Final Fantasy 11, though. ^^ I just signed up for it! But I'm downloading a monstrous update. *watches it go by...... slowly*

Oh, and my sis IS visiting, from Dec 22 to Jan 2!!

One: I HAS A KALLI BACK yay whee~! (Actually I hope she forgives me cause I was crankybear when she first msged me, but it didn't last long. *laughs* It's hard to be cranky with Kalli!)

Two: Jon and I are like, 99% certain we are going to start playing Final Fantasy 11. We've been wanting a different game, and with him playing FFT and me playing FFTA2, we've totally been hankering for some more Final Fantasy gaming goodness.

We're going to give up Dragonrealms for this. It's just gotta go. I pay a horribly large amount of money for it and don't have the heart to play any more after the last attempt at trying to get involved. :/ I'll just end up feeling guilty playing Talliska, for example, because I really don't want to be bothered with the Order stuff right now, just want to train her. :/

Three: My sis may be visiting this holidays. :O We'll see though. She's still kinda flaky (I told her I'd pour milk on her so she'd stop being flaky, hehe).

I found out last night that Natalie Shneider (I knew her best from the band Eleven and from her work with various artists particularly Chris Cornell) died a few months back from cancer. She was one of my vocalist idols and I was completely caught off guard by the news she actually passed away.

It was mostly because Jon and I were listening to some CDs we've not heard in a while from our collection. One of the ones I picked up was Eleven's Howling Book and I was all "hmm, let's see if they have a new album??" only to find out the sad news.

Then I got the idea for a cover album (well, more like EP, maybe 5-6 songs) that Jon and I could try to put together, as one of Anthegenia Records' first projects. We really want to get at least enough gear together to start on it next year.