the town
due to a condition i had growing up known as divorcedparentsitis, i had to spend my summers (up until i was ~12 years old) in a small town in rural southern france known as aynac.
aynac has a population of about 500. you'd think this would make it feel like a real tight-knit community, but it ended up not mattering because i had forgotten all my french by the time i was four. thusly i was unable to interact with the residents of this town (except through my father's questionable translation) for as long as i can remember, leading to some extremely isolating and boring summers mostly spent watching marx brothers movies and reading bad sci-fi books.
now, does the idea of getting away from the hustle and bustle of city life and retreating to a remote french village for a while sound enticing to my current self? even if i don't speak the language? sure! but you must understand, to my preteen self who did not have Bills and Responsibilities to want to get away from, this absolutely sucked. i wanted to hang out in my friends' backyards.
my feelings on it at the time aside — sometimes i wonder why i had pretty poor social skills throughout my whole childhood (and young adulthood. and adulthood...), and i evidently just forget that this all happened.
i'm not by any means saying this experience is the sole reason i grew up quiet and kind of weird. aynac was only a quarter of each year. and i don't want to be the blame-everything-on-my-dad type. but three months per year of total isolation was probably not the greatest thing for my brain.
anyway hopefully having written this out i can stop beating myself up so much whenever my mind starts wandering or i can't pick up on people's emotions.
quaint little town though. solid boulangerie.
Oct 27, 2026
i was lucky enough to experience the secret (2006) last night. my roommate and i stumbled upon it by accident while browsing for stuff to watch; she mentioned she had read the book but hadn't seen the movie. i'd never seen anything like it in my life, a rollercoaster from start to finish, absolute cinema, eye-opening, revolutionary. if you haven't seen it what are you doing.
Aug 2, 2025
the city
wow, it's been almost three years since i moved to san francisco! i haven't stayed in one place for three years since college (four years), which was kind of a while ago now. so i guess it's time to stop thinking of this city as "just a place i ended up because i got a job here" and more of a home. that might make it easier for me to connect with it. because i always feel like an outsider.
what's happened in those three years you ask?? well, a lot of things that are not really public website material because they involve career or personal stuff. that's what's so tricky about writing for this blog — anyone can see it! i gotta really be selective about what can go on here.
but just to name a few things... did all the usual touristy stuff you do in SF of course — the parks, the gardens, the piers, the hills; went to a few concerts — mostly jazz, one classical, one eurobeat; moved from a boring downtown neighborhood to a much livelier and more colorful neighborhood further out; cosplayed at a sacramento convention; traveled all over for work; visited acadia, seattle, and eureka for fun; ate a lot of good food (this could probably be broken out into its own post — there's so much good food here); splurged on a fancy piano so i can actually practice on a daily basis without having to find some practice room somewhere; and most importantly played a bunch of games with friends.
hmm doesn't sound like a ton of stuff when i lay it all out like that, especially for three years.
i gotta get out more... i just realized i haven't been to the zoo yet? i'm going to the zoo. bye
May 25, 2025
is this thing on?
hey all! i've gone ahead and rewritten this website again. i could go into detail about the new stack and how it's easier to manage and edit but honestly who needs to hear all that. it's better now and doesn't crash when i try to upload new music.
Jun 29, 2024