This weblog used to be my main and only one, where I wrote about things regardless of how I felt. From March 25th of 2024 onwards, I have changed this to be the 'weepingblog' (a bit like Weepinbell), and all of the more light-hearted entries from previous times will be moved over to a newer 'happyblog'. It gives me a way to organise things a little better on this site.
21st April, 2024
As soon as one of them leaves the house, the other is immediately on my case to bitch and complain about their problems. SHUT UP!!!! IM NOT YOUR DAMN THERAPIST!!!!
17th April, 2024
Why do I have to be the one who fixes my parents. They're old enough to do it themselves, but noooooo. I have to tell my mother to sign up for therapy and I have to be the one who tells my father to man up and sort his emotions out. They always come to me and weep about each other. I woke up to my mother crying in my face. I only moved back in because it helps me financially and I want to see my little sister. I'm not here to solve their problems. They should do it all themselves. Only bother me if one of you is going to die. They're treading on thin ice, is all I'm saying. This time last year was so mellow. We had that holiday in Japan and everything was fine. When did it all go wrong? Oh yeah, June. Stupid family. I need them but they're such a hindrance sometimes. To each other, more than myself. Ugh. Just heard Dad in the kitchen whisper "shut up" under his breath because my mother is singing loudly. It's annoying, sure, but he's still an asshole. They both are. I find it hard to openly love them sometimes, even though deep down I really do love them, but it's just so difficult to show it right now. All I can do is make sure they don't get worse, and that most importantly, my little sister is safe and ok. She's the most important one in this household for me. Everything I do, I'll do for her. She's the reason I'm living here again. My little sister is number one.
12TH MARCH 2024
Hate this fucking household. If I had the money I'd move way out and never talk to either of them. Dyed my hair yesterday. I don't want anything to do with either of those retarded adults anymore. They can't act mature enough. I don't know why I feel all this resentment towards them but I do. Especially Mother. Whether it's because she's a cripple or not is not something I understand. Probably. I need to work on an academic writing piece later.
9TH MARCH 2024
Well, Dad's finally gone and told her that he wants a divorce. Needless to say she's upset about it a lot. But she says such nasty things to him. I ydadream about what it would be like if she moved back to our native country. I'm so tired of it all. She thinks that the divorce would make me and my sister sad. But it won't. It would do the opposite. I'd be so relieved. Dad showed me some audio recordings of stuff that she kept saying to him while he was working. And it's awful. I've never known she could be like that. She was saying things like "It's not my fault. It's your fault. Your love is fake, isn't it? Poor Sumi. She will hate you someday." It's gross. It's genuinely so gross. I will never ever hate my father. Even if he drinks too much sometimes. She says that I'm similar to him. But I'm not. I feel so guilty about writing such stuff. But how else will I get out the turmoil? Sorry my entries have been so depressing lately. I am having fun most days, but the misery of this home situation overshadows it all sometimes. But the last few days I spent abroad on a trip with the college, and it was swell, and I didn't worry about home at all. I wish every day could be like that.
Her room smells weird sometimes. It's like she's festering in there, given that she never leaves it. There's no way it can be good for her health, physically and mentally. The curtains are always drawn and the harsh yellow light is permanent, regardless what time of day it is. And tomorrow is Mother's Day. I hope nothing bad happens.
I know you're still reading this, Mum. I know you are.
19TH FEBRUARY 2024
Had a daydream about throwing all of the alcohol at home down the sink. It would be so nice, and it would fix so much. No stupid booze for anyone and I will never ever drink it, lest I want to end up living like HIM, stuck with HER. They had another argument yesterday about Mother's lack of multiple sclerosis, and Dad's dreadful drinking the night before, which ended with him in the kitchen at 3AM, in a most awful state, thank God I was not awake to see him like that. Divorce already. We'd ALL be better off.
18TH FEBRUARY 2024
Apparently there's something called Sora AI now, which makes REALLY convincing video footage from text. It's pretty disturbing. I think from now on, I will make every effort I can to ensure that my art, the stuff that I create, will be physical, tangible, something you can touch and feel in real life, rather than look at from behind a screen. I will do all of it by hand and never, ever rely on a crude machine's approximation of the human brain. AI is lazy, it is impersonal, it is dull, it has none of the flair and thrill and joy that comes with actually holding a pencil in your hand. And to think that some of my tutors WANT me to interact with this disgusting thing as part of my grade! It's pathetic. I will always look down on people who use AI, whether it's for writing the essays they couldn't be bothered to write themselves, the digital illustrations they couldn't be bothered to draw themselves, and now, the films they couldn't be bothered to make themselves. It's awful. It's sickening.
4TH FEBRUARY 2024
Hope my parents get a divorce soon. Went to the city center with Dad yesterday and we talked about it over drinks (though I had only diet cola). Mother still hopelessly in love with him, Dad seems sick of her. Said she gaslights him. If we had money it would all be done already, I'll bet, but we don't, so it'll take forever. If that happens, I'm not sure what would happen with Mother. Maybe she'll move back to her country, or she'll stay with someone else over here. I will finish this degree regardless, and stay with whomever has money. I shall get a small job of my own, should they need more financial support (though a part-time bartending job wouldn't pay much).
31ST JANUARY 2024
Went outside today and bought a baguette for breakfast. Went to a local park and ate said baguette while playing dulcimer. Tomorrow will be a day out with the Illustration class, we are going to a gallery in the city center, and I shall then head to the guitar district to do some observational sketches. Got an interview on Saturday for some florist's position I forgot to apply to. Still loathe this country's drinking culture, it is sickening. Stupid fags and their obsession for booze, it'll kill them in the end.
I think the absolute worst life I could ever have would be living in this city as a proper adult, with some dead-end job in finance or some other wretched office gig, barely scraping by with insane rent for a one-bedroom apartment, dependent on coffee to stay awake, miserable and lame. I will never ever live like that. Gotta get out of this country as soon as I get my degree, God knows where to, but hopefully somewhere that I can actually afford to live in without sacrificing basic luxuries.
27TH JANUARY 2024
My sister says she woke up at 6am to the sound of my parents arguing yet again. On a Saturday, no less! Do they really have nothing better to do?? By the time I woke up, Dad was out running errands, but when he got back, he told me that Mother straight up BIT HIM ON THE ARM. What the fuck is going on. Oh yeah, I forgot to write about it, but I've moved back home (source of all evil) because the student accomodation rent prices are ridiculous. It's actual exploitation, I swear!! Damn the capital city.
20TH JANUARY 2024
Well, Mother just told me she's been reading my weblog for a while now. Uh oh! I don't really care actually, this whole website is public, and has been so since I first put it up. Dumb move on my behalf, but it's none of my concern anymore. If anything, I consider this website, this weblog specifically, to be an open diary for anyone to see what my life is like, whether good or bad. Obviously it's been kinda shitty at home lately, but whatever. I'm glad I don't use social media anymore, because people are so sensitive over there and they get into arguments about the most trivial things, so if they saw the sort of words I use and the sort of things I write about, I'd for sure get 'cancelled', ha ha. Mother can read this weblog as much as she likes, I won't be changing my writing habits any time soon. 20 years old and here I sit, writing about my parents' marital problems like some miserable 14-year old. I still feel like a kid in so many ways. Ugh.
Some might interpret this whole weblog as a cry for help. It kind of is, really. But I also write about nice things in here when I can, it's just that those nice things are so few and far between lately, the misery of home-life just seems to swamp it all. I know Zahra reads this, I know Mother reads this, gee, I don't care if the whole world is reading this!
18TH JANUARY 2024
DIVORCE ALREADY, YOU FOOLS!!!!!!!! Is what I would say to my parents, if it were actually possible. But blah blah house prices, blah blah moving back to Japan, blah blah blah. It's all Greek to me. I was out all afternoon today, which was awesome. I met two of my highschool friends at that pancake place, which was awesome. I had a berry compote waffle with vanilla ice cream, and a mocha, and they both had pancakes. After that, we went to a museum together, and saw all sorts of awesome things. My favourite was the space exploration section, it has REAL ROCKETS in it, and I've loved that section since I was five years old...and then we saw the medicine section, and then the engineering section, and finally the gift shop, where one of my friends bought a Lego set for her little brother (who is FOURTEEN YEARS OLD!!). But I also like to baby my little sister, so I can see why she bought it for him. My little sister will always be a little baby to me, she's so special. And then we went to a spicy chicken place, and I underestimated the spice level, and ate something so burningly painfully hot, I felt like I was about to pass out, no joke. A wretched meal it was, tasty, but wretched all the same. We took some instant photographs together, one of which I'll put on my wall, and then said our goodbyes.
And when I returned home, I was greeted with the wonderful (sarcasm!) news of my parents having quarreled yet again at dinner, which I managed to avoid by just ten minutes. Mother and Dad were apparently talking about North Korea at dinner, and having a real solid discussion about it, up until Mother said "seriously, just shut up, because I know more about this than you". That's so fucking rude!! Even if your marriage is in shambles, that's not something you oughta say to your husband. Dad got rightfully mad about it, so he just up and left the dinner table, I've been told. And my little sister just ate her dinner quickly and went to her room. I know Mother is sick, but that's no excuse to be mean to people you care about. It's human fucking decency, quit pathologising all your behaviour!!! Take some accountability for once! Both of them need therapy, but they're too dense to see it. If I could work my will, they'd be having weekly sessions in marriage counseling, and it would give Mother a reason to leave the house, too.
10TH JANUARY 2024
Early in the morning, 1:17 AM. I'd like to wear a skirt at some point soon, maybe when college starts up again. For some reason, I remember wearing girly clothes, and how I looked in them, just about two years ago, but I can hardly remember how it felt to BE girlish, and how to FEEL girlish. I've got quite a deep closet, so there's lots of stuff in there I can wear, and I've got the most wonderful brown and white houndstooth patterned winter coat that's been collecting dust for a little while now. I'd like to wear that again, and I know the best outfit for it. A black turtleneck, this beige miniskirt, hose and this pair of maroon crocodile leather loafers. But how would I feel once I put it on? My hair is long enough to lie flat on my head now, but it certainly isn't a bobcut. Gender expression is a fun toy to play with, and I get the feeling that most people who see my website without knowing me personally would think it belongs to a boy. I adore masculine fashion, and I adore feminine fashion just as much, if not more. So why is it always so weird for me to imagine myself wearing womanly garb? You see those flowing ballgowns that the live-wires wear at the Met Gala and big red carpet events, and I just know I could never wear such a thing. It wouldn't feel like me, but nor would some boring old suit.
That coming-of-age photoshoot last April is something I remember really well, of course. I got all dolled-up in that kimono, and had my makeup done for me, and stood for about two hours in various poses, grinning the whole way through. I remember sitting in the chair while a lady talked about my eye shape, and she painted me with concealers and powders and all kinds of glittering things. The kimono fitting, where a mosquito bite on my ankle was SO irritating, and the way my grandma laughed as I sat in that heirloom woman's kimono with my legs apart and my hands on my knees, the way a man sits, and how I laughed too. I look at those photos and I remember everything, but I know for a fact that if those photos were the only surviving thing of my existence in the far future, my ghost would be rolling in its grave. It's not my personality in the slightest. That giggling, vapid girl posing with those elegant fake nails and the parasol in her hand, that frivolous young woman with her eyes framed in purple eyeshadow. She looks exactly like me, for she is me, but there is hardly a hint of Sumi. Sumi who likes to wear the hand-me-downs from her father, Sumi who cuts her nails so short you think they'd bleed, Sumi with her calloused fingertips from cooking and sewing and playing dulcimer, Sumi who looks like a boy but looks at pictures of girlish fashion in magazines, wishing she could wear those someday. I don't see her in those photos. It was such a nice day, though.
You might think I'm commiserating all of this, but I'm not. I don't feel sad writing this, just a bit strange.
7TH JANUARY 2024
Holy fuck what a horrible start to the year. 2024 kickin' my ass already!! Last night was insane and not in a good way. Allow me to elaborate, girliepop.
11pm and I am in the bathroom getting ready for bed. I'm about to brush my teeth and I can hear my parents arguing a little from their bedroom (as it is right next to the bathroom), but I think nothing of it until my mother screams and leaves the bedroom. Ah, something is happening and indeed, I will be thrown into this, I think to myself. I open the door to see what's going on and my mother is sitting hunched over clutching her knees on the floor, and yells out for me to "hide the knives", she is scared of losing control and hurting herself. I panic and run into the kitchen and hide the knives away in some dark corner of the kitchen where nobody can see them, and Dad tells me that they had an argument. Long story short, Dad no longer loves my mother because she's invalid and he misses her for how she used to be. Mother asked him for a hug before bed and he wouldn't give it to her, telling her that she's selfish, self-obsessed and intolerant of other peoples' opinions, which isn't really the best thing to say to someone right before they go to bed. Retarded decision if you ask me, but it was his choice so I don't care. Mother kept saying how she didn't want to die but she didn't want to live like this anymore, and an ambulance was called, I took Mother to the hospital's Emergency Department at around 1:30 AM, and I got home at 4am, and woke up at a quarter to noon. Holy fuck I'm tired.
If I could be anywhere right now, I would be in a warm country, sitting under a waterfall on a rock formation. The air smells of moss and leaves and I am so cozy. Maybe there's a natural lake I can swim in, warm, and I see parakeets chirping 'auuk auuk' in the trees. Foreign fruit hangs from those trees, all different colours, and the leaves are just as vivid. I spend a couple of hours there, and I make my way back to some sort of indoor place, and the air is colder now, but I curl up in a pile of warm blankets and I nap for 20 hours.........I wake up feeling refreshed and all the stress is gone. Ohhh yeah.
3RD JANUARY 2024
Happy New Year 2024!! I think Dad's mildly drunk again. He went out into town for the whole day to go see some friends, and he's home now, but he's been irritable and obsessive about cleaning the house. There's still soup leftover for dinner, but he's having pizza. I can hear him sighing and swearing under his breath, real loser behaviour if you ask me. I hope he doesn't become an alcoholic, I know he rationally wouldn't, but he seems like the type to fall into it. I'm dead meat if he reads this weblog on a daily basis, he knows I have a website of my own since I showed it to him last year.
He seems calm now. He's going to watch Blade Runner 2049 on TV, so that'll keep him chill for now. Honestly, the way I talk about him sometimes, it feels as though I'm describing the natural habitat of a venomous serpent! Cue the David Attenborough voice talking over footage of my dad on the sofa..."And now, we see the wild Papa in its relaxed state. Passive, but --------" so on and so forth, hahaha.
31ST DECEMBER 2023
The final day of the year. It's 12AM here, so I suppose it counts as a new day now. Dad's been drinking a lot today, more than the weekly recommended amount all in just one day. He's not a full time drunkard, which is good, but there are days when he drinks and I think to myself, "were it not for the family and his job, would he be the sort of guy who spends all his time in a drunken stupor like a real wastoid?". Seven cans of beer and half a decanter of whiskey so far, I'm not even sure how he can stomach it all. one can of cider for me and I feel like garbage for rest of the evening, it's hard to believe we're even related! Drinking culture in this country is disgusting, it seems like every adult gathering centres around or at least includes booze in one form or another. It's common for young people to drink in parks, when they're underage, and don't even get me started on what student accommodation was like. All of my roommates spent their Fridays getting drunk and making utter asses of themselves. I've had a few drinks in my time, don't get me wrong, but at least I know my limits and stick firmly to them! Dad's on holiday for the next week and a half, so he deserves a break of course, but he seems to be using it as an excuse to get drunk. Idiotic behaviour, if you ask me. I don't want to deny the man any pleasure in life, but sometimes I fantasize about pouring all the planet's booze down the drain so nobody in the world can have a single drop. Trust me, they would be better off without it.
9TH DECEMBER 2023
I'm pretty sure I'm a girl now, back to normal. Though I don't look it at all, other than my actual body and face. My hair, my clothes, my attitude, all of it is so masculine, it'll take me a while to be girly again. That is, if I even really truly want to.
I've been feeling quite sludgy lately. My room just feels like a bad space now other than for sleep, so I try to spend as little waking time in it as I can. I've considered maybe moving back home for next semester, something I shall have to discuss with my family. I just find it so wasteful here. All my savings were gone when rent came around in the first month. I went outside to the busy part of town earlier today, because I just had to get out of my room, and I felt so sad. I kept tearing up and at one point I nearly cried in a bookshop. I suspect it's been all the tension of the past year finally catching up to me, alongside my period, and the absolute megaton of deadlines I have to meet. It's a miserable situation to be in, but it'll pass soon as new year comes forth.
There's a karaoke event in the main common room later tonight, and I might go, if some of my room-mates are going. The only thing is, the western style of karaoke seems to be very much focused on getting drunk and singing in front of an audience, the complete opposite from the Japanese form of karaoke. Suppose that's just the way things are in this country, though I shouldn't be surprised, I've lived here all my life.
7TH DECEMBER 2023
Had a big gender crisis earlier this morning and cried to my mother on the phone about it. I'm still not super sure what I am, but for the time being I want to be just Sumi. A thing that floats in a big sea of ink maybe. Thinking about it too deeply makes me feel weirdly sick and panicky, I'm not sure why. It's never been this crazy before, but I can probably chalk it up to a mix of stress, my period, and general winter sadness. This year has been a weird one is all I can say on the matter. And I just want to be a little ball of dust in the corner of a dimly-lit washitsu. Maybe my opinion will change later, maybe not. All this crying and being sad about gender has me tuckered out, I'm so 疲れた。
Gonna make tostones later today, I must buy two more limes later. There's a small general store about a five minute walk out of my college, so I'll visit there later. I might make a new website for writing in Japanese, actually. I want to practice it more, because my conversational skills could really use some work.
14TH JULY 2023
Nothing much to say today, except this: I'll bite the kneecaps of any tech-loving loser who thinks to any degree that AI "art" is on the same level as real human creation. I've been working so hard to get to where I am, and I need to work even harder to get to where I want to be in the future. There's no way in hell I'll ever let people say that my art is worth the same, or LESS, than the shit that gets churned out by mindless computers with no understanding of soul and emotion and the very human desires to create. FUCK those people. --Sumi 14/07/2023
13TH JULY 2023
I tried to record some of my banjo playing, but there is straight up nowhere in this apartment where I can do that. My sister says I can't record in our room because she's on a voice call with her friends playing videogames, and my parents are always in the living room or kitchen. God I'm really looking forward to September, when I can finally get out of here! I'll miss being able to have a bath every evening (the student halls only have showers), but at least I'll finally be paying my own rent, for a place that I can chill in and record however much music I want without worrying about anyone else.
I stayed at home all day today, having gotten out of bed around half past 11 AM. I usually don't rot in bed for so long, but after yesterday's closing shift at the mall, I guess I kinda needed it. Nothing too crazy happened at the store yesterday, but my shift felt like it was dragging on forever. Seriously, is it even healthy for the human body to work 9 hours straight? Maybe to the average adult it seems pretty standard, but from the perspective of someone who actually cares about the limits of his body and brain, I think it's just cruel to make people work that long, doing something they don't even like. For real, I'll bet there's only about three people in the world who ACTUALLY like doing customer service, and they clearly must have some kind of brain disease. On a completely different topic, I've been wondering whether I should change the theme of this site or not. It's really cool as it is, but in terms of readability (is that even a word?), having bright yellow on top of dark purple probably ain't all that good for the average netizen's eyes. I've also been wanting to add a thing where I can have music playing automatically in my homepage, but I have no idea what I need to do to get that. Maybe I'll try and figure it out with a little research after I'm done writing this entry. --Sumi 13/07/2023
7TH JULY 2023
I hate this stupid house. The only person I can tolerate most of the time is my sister because she never gets under my skin or complains about anything. Both my parents never shut the fuck up about each other and they ALWAYS ALWAYS come bitching to me about some retarded fucking argument they had earlier in the day. And this happens nearly every day. I'm not their damn therapist, I'm their kid, and I wish they'd just fucking zip it or at least go to marriage counseling or something, but with the way things are, they probably won't. If it carries on like this for however long, I doubt they'll still be together by the end of the year. They say they love each other, and sometimes it shows, but most of the time it's like they're both walking on eggshells around each other. I feel like that too, I know I love them because duh, they're my parents, but sometimes I just can't wait for September to roll around so I can finally move out of this place. It's always "blah blah blah oh Sumi it's like your mother just worries way too much and she's SUCH a hypochondriac, clearly it's all in her head", and "nantoka kantoka oh Sumi-chan I wish your father would just understand, he's so cold and callous and critical about everything, what a chode" and I just hate hearing it! And now my mother doesn't have a job because she's sick, and my dad's always working at home, I never get time to myself. EVER. Going outside provides temporary relief from the misery at home, but even then, I'm not really alone, because I'm with the rest of the world. I just miss the days when I was still in highschool and both of my parents would be working in their offices, and I'd get home from classes early and have those precious few hours by myself where I could do whatever I pleased. Don't give a fuck about how I am at work anymore, I hardly smile at customers and they don't take offence to it. So long as I'm polite and do my job properly, it's all cool, even if I have to deal with the occasional asshole or two, because at least they leave the store and never come back. I always go home at the end of the day and it's the same stupid shit over and over again. Autumn come quickly, save me from this misery! --Sumi 07/07/2023
26TH APRIL 2023
I haven't written on this site in a little over a month. I don't have much strong desire to update this place lately, but maybe the motivation will come back sometime soon. The trip abroad was awesome, though. We stayed at a relative's house and met with other relatives and old friends, ate all kinds of food, and bought a lot of souvenirs, and went to so many places in the city. I will elaborate more on this trip in one of my future entries, since it deserves a whole log of its own, hehehe.
On a slightly more sad note, my main intention for today's entry was to just get out some thoughts about this gap year, and friends, and university and such. I hardly talk about negative things on this site, since I don't want it to become one of those miserable things that depressed people make to try and cope with stuff (though I've been in a similar spot in previous days.)
It's so lonely here. I have friends, of course I do, but I hardly ever see them, since they're all away studying in faraway cities, and it gets busy around this time of year with exams and all. I don't consider any of my colleagues as friends, even if they're the people I talk to most frequently outside of my family. They're nice, but I don't feel the need to be around them and spend time with them. But then again, I'm sure most people have that attitude towards their coworkers too. It's silly to complain about stuff like this, given that I straight up chose to take this year off, but every now and then I find myself wondering whether I regret it or not. Making cash is nice, and I'm sure there are people who would envy the wages and solitude that comes with this year off, but I haven't felt so lonely in a while. Even a couple years ago, arguably one of the worst eras of my life ever, I didn't feel lonely. I was in highschool back then, so I saw friends every day, and we stuck to each other like glue.
But it's a hard, achey sort of feeling to see your friends moving forward and doing all kinds of fun university things, making progress in their lives and accomplishing things, while you sit doing the same old daily routine like an old pensioner. Loser-esque as it sounds, on rare occasions, I worry that maybe they see me no longer as a very close friend, and more like an older friend that they occasionally make communications with. But to me, they're still my newest friends, and will be until I hopefully get back into university lifestyle in this coming autumn (so long as the university accepts me). This ache will pass, as all things do, but when you're going through such things, it can sometimes feel like quicksand, keeping you stuck in one place. Frankly, I'm not very used to being alone all the time, even though I'm never alone at home (though that is another can of worms for another day, that again, will be thrown away once I move out for university). I do miss socialising with the fun folk. --Sumi 26/04/2023
22ND MARCH 2023
Less than TWO WEEKS till the holiday, and it's all I ever daydream about now. What I'll wear on the plane, what we'll do when we get there, what we'll eat, where we'll go...it's just so damn exciting. Something I'm looking forward to in particular is a photo-shoot that one of my relatives is setting up for us, to be done at one of those professional studios as a coming-of-age ceremony of sorts. I'll be wearing an heirloom dress (even if it's traditionally for girls), and all of my family will be dressed to the fuckin' nines. The whole thing's mostly for the joy of my grandma over there, since it means a lot to her that the dress gets passed down through the generations.
I've been getting sick quite a bit, even though we're only three months into the year so far. Hopefully it's just the shitty cold weather doing it, and that there's nothing up with my immune system. I was sick in the very beginning of the new year, if you can recall in my older entries here, and then I came down with Covid towards the end of February, and now I'm recovering from yet ANOTHER cold which hit me in the last few days!! Jeez!! At least I have it now, and not before we go off on holiday. That would really suck. It would be nice if more people would just wear masks outside in this country, but the stupid Western standards seem to totally neglect any idea of self-preservation and being considerate to others.
In fact, maybe I'll rant about that whole thing now. People here where I live (a big city, of course) are getting more and more inconsiderate of the people around them, ESPECIALLY on public transport. On the buses and trains, it's getting increasingly common to see/hear people watching their stupid videos on their stupid smartphones without earphones. You have to spend pretty much the entirety of your journey listening to some dumb techno song through shitty speakers, and people just act like it's normal now?? It's so RUDE!! If I think that the person isn't much of a threat to me, then I'll tell them to wear earphones or turn the sound off, because nobody else does so. It's all TikTok's fault, really. That app is a genuine cancer to society. It's ruined the brains of so many people, especially in my generation, so I always do feel a little smug about knowing how I'll never use it, and that I never have a smartphone glued to my side. Maybe that makes me sound like a bit of a douchebag, but I don't really care. It's a weird superiority complex thing I have about something that ultimately doesn't affect anyone but me, so it's not doing any harm to anyone. --Sumi 22/03/2023
4TH MARCH 2023
I haven't written anything on here for a while. To be honest, there's not a great deal to write about! Every day has some sort of routine now, whether it's work or cooking or something else. I seldom meet up with friends, since they're all away studying, but it's not too lonely. I've got a few close friends from the other side of the pond who I talk with a lot on Discord (known some of them for nearly six years already!), which is always fun. But that holiday overseas is getting closer with each passing day, so it gives me something to look forward to B) I really oughta make a proper list of what to take with me, and what to bring back to my homecountry afterwards.
Listening to Jean Ritchie songs now. I don't believe I've written about it already, but I got a stick dulcimer a couple months ago, tuned to D-A-D just like a regular mountain dulcimer, except it's thin and you hold it like you would with a banjo. It makes a good and clear sound, and is really easy to play songs on. I was gonna get an autoharp, but it turns out that they're REALLY expensive, close to about a half of my monthly wages, as such, the stick dulcimer was my next best choice, and it's real worth it. There's a few songs I'm quite decent with now, but there's still a lot more to learn. --Sumi 04/03/2023
2ND FEBRUARY 2023
I'm writing today's entry in a cafe, one of the fancy new-ish ones with exposed brick and hardwood floors, and it's got a decent connection to the Net, which is always a plus. I should actually be doing some online training courses for my job, but I got a little sidetracked (a pretty common occurence for someone like me...!). My drink is jasmine tea, which I thought would be pretty expensive given that it's from a high-brow place like this, but it cost me the equivalent of under three American dollars! Good thing is, I've got a whole week off of work, starting from a couple days ago. Not a holiday, but still! It gives me plenty of time to chill out and re-charge before my next shift next week.
AND!!!!! In exactly two months, me and my family are going to the other side of the WORLD to visit family.........I'm SO excited!!!! My brain's suddenly fizzled out so I can't really think of anything else to write about, which has been happening quite a bit recently, but oh well. I guess I'll write something better next time...! --Sumi 02/02/2023
29TH JANUARY 2023
Sundays are always busy at work, but I managed to do something I'm actually pretty damn proud of: I gaslit a customer. This is my magnum opus. My greatest feat yet. Nothing can top this. And if you sit down, allow me to divulge the true details of what went down...
Around the fifth hour of the afternoon, just a little while after I had returned from my scheduled break, came into the shop a customer garbed in a neon yellow t-shirt with the Playboy logo printed on top, and just underneath the logo, the word "Playboy" written in Japanese katakana. I cannot remember exactly why, but I was all of a sudden struck by the intense urge to make fun of it. And I must stress, I am very rarely a mean or mocking sort of fellow. But to laugh in the face of a customer would be unthinkable, and most assuredly against every line in the staff rulebook. Thus, I knew at once that I would have to pull quite the trick to make something work, as well satisfy that terrible mean streak in me.
Once the customer came forth to the till, and after I had scanned all of her items, I acted. Staring her dead in the eye, a mournful frown upon my lips, I cried aloud, "I'm so sorry miss, but that shirt doesn't actually say Playboy in Japanese!" The customer grew flustered, and responded that she had not known so, and spurred me to tell her what it actually said. Making up a new meaning on the spot was no easy task, but with the luck of the stars on my side, I managed to do so in a way that did not give away my true intentions. "It says 'collarbone'", I replied, my frown now changed to a self-deprecating grin. The customer laughed, seemingly embarrassed, and made one more quip: "Well, I got it off a shady website, so that's probably why!". After a final remark on how she would wear the "collarbone T-shirt" either way, she gathered her items and left the store. Okay, I'm done writing like some stupid fancy Victorian novelist. It was pretty funny, though, even if it is kinda pointless in the grand scheme of things. Anything to make the working day more fun for me, you know? --Sumi 29/01/2023
23RD JANUARY 2023
I'm gonna be working 8 and a half hours tomorrow, all the way till closing time. But Tuesdays never get very busy if we're lucky, so maybe it won't be as crazy. I watched the new episode of TLoU today, and holy crap, it just continues to amaze me. The visuals, the lighting, the acting, it's all just sublime. I won't write too much about it, since it's still an ongoing TV show at the moment, but you bet I'll write essays worth of stuff after the finale. Not much else to say today, to be honest. --Sumi 23/01/2023
19TH JANUARY 2023
I'm on holiday for a week, since it's mandatory before March comes around. I haven't had as much motivation or energy to put a lot of work into this site like I did the last couple months, but I'm definitely not letting this die out. It's too important for me to neglect!
Just a couple hours ago, I watched the first episode of the new TLoU television series, and it is fucking CRACKER. Pedro Pascal is the absolute best person to ever play Joel, and so is Bella Ramsey with Ellie. Through pretty much the whole episode I was saying, WOW THIS IS JUST LIKE THE GAME!!!! And Sarah's death was just as, if not even more, scary and intense as it was in the game. I haven't actually played the game, on account of my bad reaction times (terrible for playing action games), but I've watched a lady on Twitch play it. After some research as well, I've got a few theories as to just exactly how the cordyceps fungus would work in humans too. The real life ants affected by it aren't braindead, they're still conscious (well, as conscious as ants can be), which makes it all the more terrifying when you realise they're just puppets, aware that their sense of autonomy is being taken over by the fungus. And if we apply that same principle to the infected in TLoU, then that's really, really messed up. Oh, and I've got a couple days holiday left before I return to work again. I gotta use it wisely! --Sumi 19/01/2023
11TH JANUARY 2023
Seeing my friends was awesome. They're all college students, so I made sandwiches for them for lunch (probably the first proper meal they've had in a while, hahaha), and then we gathered in my room to chill out :) I introduced them all to "Lady", my 1880s sock puppet lady. I'm a bit tired now so I won't write much today...hehehe! --Sumi 11/01/2023
6TH JANUARY 2023
Happy New Year!! Rock n roll '23 motherfuckers!! Nothing much has happened so far, same old stuff as always. I came down with a pretty gnarly cold a few days ago, which suckerpunched all the energy out of me, but I'm thankfully recovering from it, and feeling way better now. My dad got a whole new stereo set the other day, since our old one was really busted up, and we've got a really good set of floor-standing speakers now. The first thing we played on it was the Blade Runner soundtrack, and man, it was crisp as all hell. Every note and every little thing just sounded so rich and smooth, it was awesome. I've got some friends from college coming over today, so my entry won't be too long. Maybe in my next entry, I'll write all about it! They're a real crowd I love them so much. If you see this guys, rock on!!!!!!! --Sumi 06/01/2023
26TH DECEMBER 2022
Christmas has come and gone, and it was awesome. I've got quite a bit to write about, but it also feels like I can't think of anything to write about at all. I'll just write whatever comes to mind then, hehehe.
I met up with a pal from highschool on Christmas Eve, to catch up on everything, since they were spending a few days back up in our hometown (they study in a town down south). We hated each other like crazy back in highschool, but we've made HELLA amends since then. They're doin good, and so am I :) We got sushi together, which was pretty good. It was one of the few chain sushi places my mother approves of, anything like w*g*m*m* is pure fucken sacrilege. I got a couple things from a small department store, and then we parted ways. Since it was Christmas Eve, that evening, the whole family got together in the living room to partake in our family's tradition of watching "Muppets Christmas Carol". Objectively, one of the best movies of all time! And yesterday morning, I helped Dad with getting the Christmas dinner all set, like I do every year. We have a lot of small, set traditions in this family, like little routines. For gifts, I managed to get everyone what they liked, and I got one of the best gifts I've ever recieved: a 2-disc, 51-song set of Ruth Etting's famous tunes on CD :) I played it through the stereo before lunch, and afterward I ripped it onto my laptop, and synced it with my walkman. I LOVE Ruth Etting's songs, she's got such a nice voice. I can't sing in the same keys as her, since her voice is quite a bit higher than mine, but it's fun to try all the same.
Worked today too, one of the longest shifts. It felt like forever!! Of course, Boxing Day is hectic as hell, and where I work is no exception. IDK why so many people find it absolutely necessary to go crazy in malls the day after Christmas, but man, it was like a damn madhouse up in that store..My general consensus from today is that people will do ANYTHING to get in on the half price sales, even if it means dropping their own babies on the floor to search for their wallets. The baby cried a bit, but that's better than complete silence, I guess. We laughed a bit about it after, though. A lot of customers are just plain dumb as hell. --Sumi 26/12/2022
20TH DECEMBER 2022
SO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! FRUCKEN!!!!!!!!!!!! SLEEPY!!!!!!!!!!! AUUUUUUUUUGHHHHH OUGHHHHHHH OUGHHHHHHH wauuuu....wauuhhh....goodnight, old pals. Soon I will be SO cosy in bed and ready to face tomorrow (Sparkle On Wednesday)! --Sumi 20/12/2022
16TH DECEMBER 2022
I managed to overcome a pretty big obstacle earlier today. I told my boss I'm on the spectrum, and she took it a LOT better than I expected! Luckily, she's been very understanding so far, and even said herself that she figured I was somewhat bad at handling large social gatherings, especially the Christmas party last Sunday evening (a most intimidating event, it was!). On that same evening, I recieved a copy of Nineteen Eighty-Four, the novel by Orwell, from a colleague as part of the gift exchange. It was an awesome thing to read, no wonder it's one of the most famous books in history, certainly one of those books that give you a new window into the world. My main thing to take from the book though, is: Newspeak does sound like a very interesting way to condense the language. Not necessarily good, of course, but definitely a unique approach, more so than all these newfangled internet acronyms! I talked about the book with Dad for a while after I finished reading it, and he said he might get the movie version with John Hurt in it on video sometime soon, which will be good to watch :D Oh, and I got paid today too, which is pretty swell. I'll save it up for now, though. I'm not planning on doing anything yet. I've asked my parents that their gift to me this Christmas is money for a tattoo, so I shan't have to pay it myself, they get rather expensive, and their income is quite the sum compared to mine. I ought to settle on a proper design for the tattoo, too! It's exciting! --Sumi 16/12/2022
8TH DECEMBER 2022
I've been doing a lot of Christmas shopping in the last week or so. So far, I've bought for my family: some skin lotion for my sister, a book on Impressionist art for my mother, and a book about jazz for my father, as well as a new crime novel for my grandmother (which I've asked the mall bookstore to stock for me). Once I get paid, which should be near the end of the month, I'll get some gifts for my friends as well. Last year I got one of them a Minecraft-themed math book, which they actually really enjoyed! I need to give him his clown statue too, which I bought a few months ago as a souvenir from a city down southwards, but he forgot to take it home when he visited a few weeks after. Listening to ABBA's early tunes at the moment, the song "Love Isn't Easy" is my favourite thus far. I need to do some prep for academic stuff soon, too........ough! Fare well for now then, I guess. --Sumi 08/12/2022
2ND DECEMBER 2022
Listening to the tunes of Whispering Jack Smith as I write this entry for today, his voice is so soothing. Grandma's coming to visit again tomorrow, and we'll be having some soup I made earlier today for lunch. We all got her some gifts for Christmas, too :) I got one for my mom in advance as well, though it's nothing super special (freebie multivitamins from my job...don't tell her that!) Oh, and that date with that girl from yesterday wasn't so bad. We didn't do anything romantic and just kinda fistbumped each other at the end, which was probably a sign that we're not flushed for each other or anything. I don't know if I'm properly cut out for romance, to be honest. It's complicated stuff, and I'm pretty happy with just being the "funny sidekick" kinda fella, you know? Taking things seriously is difficult sometimes (not in a cringey batman Joker way though!!), so I just make funny puns and hope for the best, hahaha. I'm also considering making another website for me to talk about bugs and other things I'm passionate about. Maybe I can take sneaky looks at the CSS of other people's websites, since I'm not too good at building up my own. Is that a crime? --Sumi 02/12/2022
28TH NOVEMBER 2022
My job's going all cool, all smooth sailin' so far B))) I stopped using that dumb accent by the way, it got stale real fast. I've gotten a lot better at navigating the store now, I know where all the main things are. There's a few items we sell that are straight up impossible to find sometimes, but someone usually helps me out with it :P Tomorrow I have a doctor's appointment, which means I don't have to help with morning stockups on the shelves, but I still have to do six hours in the evening :// Five days of work in a row, I can hardly catch a break!! All jokes aside, I don't mind the gig. I feel like I'm contributing to some part of society, even if I'm just selling suspicious vitamins to rich old men (they absolutely LOVE to buy "maca", which apparently helps sexual potency, like penis enlargement pills.). And on Thursday, I have a date with a girl I've been talking with for a couple weeks, and I'm nervous as HELL. She's suave and smooth with flirting and all that, which I'm the total opposite of. I'm pretty sure she's seen this website already, uh oh!! I don't even know what most "date protocol" is like, to be honest. Do I get her a gift or something? That reminds me, actually. I should really start getting gifts for everyone's Christmas this year..--Sumi 28/11/2022
11TH NOVEMBER 2022
Worked just 8 hours this week, but I'm settling in pretty well. Navigating the store is easy enough, though the specific items that some customers want are pretty hard to find sometimes. It's just trial and error though, I'll learn the details soon enough. Somehow I've managed to convince everyone that my natural accent is a super heavy Southern one, like I'm from South Carolina or something, and I'm not sure how I should go about it now. Maybe if I slowly wean myself and everyone else off of it like a meth baby, it could work? Switching so suddenly would raise eyebrows for sure. But I might just keep on at it anyway, it's pretty fun to practice, and I think it makes the old people feel more comfortable. Like I'm a character from the old Westerns they watched as kids, IDK. From 8 in the morning, too. At least it's the weekend now, so there'll be plenty of time to mellow out before. Unrelated, but I'm also considering growing my hair out. It's dyed black right now, so I'll keep on dyeing the roots if I need to. I miss having fluffy hair around my face, it's cosy. --Sumi 11/11/2022
6TH NOVEMBER 2022
I decided to check out that Filipino fried chicken branch that rhymes with "Golly Gee" today. There's been one in my city for the last four or five years already, and I've been meaning to go there for a while now, but I kept putting it off. Turns out, it's okay. Nothing special but it's definitely better than something like KFC. The chicken was really crispy but not as hot as I thought it would be (in terms of temperature). The fries were really good, and the gravy tasted a bit like Japanese curry, which was pretty neat. After I ate there, I went to a thrift store and found this cookbook from the 1970s, and of course, I had to get it. There's some really good pictures inside, and I'll definitely attempt some of the recipes too. I got that job at the health foods store by the way, but it's gonna be at the shop in the big mall in the suburb over. My commute will be a lot easier then, since I can just take a bus each way. Uniform's all black like in the Italian restaurant from before, but I don't have to wear a button down! I'll gladly take a plain old t-shirt and baggy pants over formal attire any day. So, we'll see how this new gig works :D --Sumi 06/11/2022
2ND NOVEMBER 2022
Halloween was quite fun, but rather uneventful, save for an interview I had at a health foods store in the next town over. Hopefully I'll get that gig. And I did end up dressing as Nepeta, but only for a little while! Turns out that gray paint really doesn't feel that great on my face, but the end result looked pretty awesome. I carved a pumpkin the day before, and I tried to get it to say "meow" with the shape of a cat on it, but I grossly miscalculated and it ended up saying "mow" instead :(( I'm cooking dinner tonight (palak paneer!), which is a great dish, and tomorrow, I'm seeing two pals for dinner and drinks, one of whom I haven't seen in over a year. I'm excited to see him again, he's had a bit of a rough ride last time I heard of him, but he's doing much better now. Okay, time to go switch the rice cooker on :-) --Sumi 02/11/2022
28TH OCTOBER 2022
My grandma's coming to visit tomorrow, so I'll be making lunch (beef bourgignon, following the recipe by Delia Smith). My cookery skills are getting real solid now, if I do say so myself! And by the way, here's the link to the Barney hate website I mentioned a while ago. It's so funny, you get to shoot him with cannons and run him over with motorcycles.. I hope the link works, but if not, copying and pasting is easy. In three days, it'll be Halloween too! I've decided that I'm going to dress up as Nepeta Leijon from Homestuck; she's one of my all-time fav characters. I relate to her so much!! I bought a pumpkin a few days ago too, so maybe I can carve that on the night before Halloween. A couple years ago, some kids came around to trick-or-treat, though we haven't seen em since. Halloween isn't as crazy over here as it is in other parts of the world, but I still like to have fun with it anyways :D --Sumi 28/10/2022
23RD OCTOBER 2022
Well, don't you know! The country's leader resigned a few days ago, making her term the shortest in national history (and she didn't even die at the end). It's anyones guess as to who's gonna be the next head honcho, but the current two leading candidates are both total grade-A douchebags with egos bigger than their giant fat mansions. I'm also considering adding a new section to this website for writing down all the recipes I dig. Maybe I'll follow that recent trend of writing down one's entire life story before getting to the instructions themselves, LOL :D --Sumi 23/10/2022
15TH OCTOBER 2022
I helped save a snail on the pavement yesterday when it was raining outside. Its shell was kinda cracked but hopefully it isn't too much of an injury, and that it can recover. The little thing was right in the middle of the road, and if it stayed there I just knew it would get hurt, so I picked it up and moved it. I still miss my old pet snails, I hope some of them managed to thrive out there :( I've also deleted my Facebook account, because I've only recently come to the conclusion that having all your info out there for anyone to see, especially someone with a name as unique as mine, is actually pretty scary and invasive. So, I'm going back to theways of remaining as anonymous as I can, and I don't think writing about my duties as snail rescuer will give me away anytime soon, hehehe. --Sumi 15/10/2022
6TH OCTOBER 2022
This is my first entry into this section of my website, and although I probably won't update it every day, I'll see if I can do so at least once a month. Structurally, this website is really starting to come together now and I've gotta say, I'm pretty dang proud of it so far, even if it's not the coolest site out there (the title of which belongs to a barney hate website hahaha). --Sumi 06/10/2022
Sumi's Site...From 2022 - The end of the world!