man, this month has been surprisingly exhausting as everything is starting to wrap up this semester! i'm typically pretty bad at keeping up with habits during busy times like this so i haven't given myself many opportunities to write a lot. i know, ironic considering my last post was about rest!

i got older some time this month! my mom kept asking me if i wanted to do anything special for it but i'm not usually one for grand, bustling celebrations and stuff like that, so it was just a relatively chill day; we ate out, my dad and i spontaneously bought a ukulele banjo when we were only meant to get guitar strings lol.

i've been wanting an actual banjo for a while, i think it's a beautiful instrument with a rich history, but the ukulele banjo is close behind (and cheaper!) and has its own qualities that set it apart from both a ukulele and a banjo. it's been fun toying around with that thing, it has a unique timbre i've never really had access to before, so it's been interesting trying to incorporate it into my songwriting.

other than that, i added a /now page to the site, inspired by Derek Sivers! i really liked the concept: a high level, bigger picture look at your life, currently. if we have pages about ourselves personally then why not a page about how we've been lately? so that's there now, and it'll be updated every once in a while!

i'm also currently reworking my interests page to be it's own thing and have its own sub-pages and stuff so i'll have more room to ramble on about the things i love and hyperfixate over! it'll be fun. i've been trying to think of an interesting, quirky name for it other than just "interests" but that's what it is right now lol. i've also been throwing around ideas for a landing page and possibly rearranging and adding some stuff to the main layout, but knowing myself, if i don't keep at things one at a time then nothing'll get finished, so that's my current focus for now on the site!

i've also been trying to improve at poetry-writing in particular. it's a bit difficult because poetry can be, to me, an especially vulnerable-feeling medium, and at the same time it can be really easy to sound (and i don't like using this word often, but) cringe, to say the least. my writing also tends to lean towards being a little macabre and surreal, which can be hard for me to judge objectively, if that makes any sense. but it's something i really want to get better at, because it can be a very powerful and moving medium, and i really do love writing despite how embarrassing it still feels.

that should be it for now, mostly. there's not much else notable going on, just trying to make it through this semester, and going into details there would be very boring and probably amount to just a list of complaints. so i hope this month has been good to you, and if not, i hope the next will be better! take care, you deserve it! here's a little audio doodle i recorded the other day: