EREBUS

Where's the snow? I was promised snow for today. I was expecting to have my US soap opera moment, open up the windows having overslept, see the ground on my front yard painted white as I scratch my eyes open, then see my friend coated up saying:

– School is closed for the day! Let’s go build a snowman!

Of course I am not from the US, not from a province where it regularly snows, don’t have a front yard, and it has been eight years since the last time I went to school. But I did want my snowman, bummer.

—

I started the procedure to get a passport. I’ve never needed one, never even seen one in the flesh, but since we are planning a trip to Japan for next year, I need one! We almost bought the tickets on saturday, then realized I needed to insert my passport number and got stuck there. Should be here before friday. Hopefully my picture there doesn’t suck too much. I have a terrible, terrible history with ID photographs.

It’s not even the typical unfavorable lighting or the ‘I look like an inmate’ kind of thing. I have some pictures of mine that look like I had just been struck by a hurricane right before getting my picture taken, tough thing.

—

I’m trying to take better care of myself. I started running again after a couple months. I had to stop due to the fact that I started having terrible migraines during that period of time. It all got under control now, so hopefully it won’t be an issue this time around.

I find it funny, I always meant to pick up running as an exercise, but I didn’t do until I read “What I talk about when I talk about running” by Haruki Murakami, on this book, the author often mentions how he goes out to run listening to classic rock music from the 60s. I don’t think I quite match the vibe myself, since I mostly run listening to Kero Kero Bonito, but I’m on something of my own I guess.

—

I like sushi now, apparently. Since we’re traveling to Japan, I thought I should brush away that characteristic of my personality: non-sushi eater. I never liked cold food, nor raw fish. Guess what? It wasn’t all that hard. We ordered sushi last Saturday, ate it, and loved it. So yeah, all sushi of the world, beware! I’m out to get you. I might start reconsidering some other aspects of my personality now, since it seems everything is up for change. I might change my name, get a generic haircut and start wearing those jackets that look like trash bags paired with skinny jeans and Adidas sneakers, take odd-angle pictures of myself and develop a strange obsession with cars. Who knows.

—

I’m planning on changing this site. I like the overall style, but I want to push the knob a bit. I don’t think I’ve done my very best, and I check neocities more than any social media platform nowadays, so I should put in the work. I’m gonna start sketching things now, since I have two hours to spare.

—

Also, props to every single man in my family for giving such detailed passionate representations on how not to act at every single instance or complication a human being might face, way to go guys!

I think we can stop now.

-ram.

Good coffee, good company, good plans. Studies, music, oh boy, music! Man, I love music. I first got interested in jazz when I was around 18 or so, but never delve deep into it. My time has come now, I haven't been listening to anything else for the past couple weeks. I'm just so into it. The weird harmonies that at time sound like shit taste like coffee on your very first sip. 'Ew! How can anybody like this?' ; The first beer you ever get 'Oh god, how come adults drink this?'. But man if it isn't good. It leaves you with an aftertaste that says 'You will come back to me kid, see you around'.

I've been watching quite a lot of films lately. I have a taste for bad movies. They are tricky ones to manage. When it comes to classics, I mean, anybody can like 'The Godfather'; anybody can feel the complexity of 'Interstellar', go down the path that '2001 a Space Oddity' takes you along. But to watch 'Murder Workshop' on a shitty dvd rip? 'Cocaine Bear'? 'Difficulty Breathing'? That's me, that's me on the screen, I fuck with that so much. I love the tiny intricacies that make something bad be soo good. I am the target audience, thank you very much.

I need to move my journal out of my main html file, It's getting too messy. Sarah from Kingdom of Akibaten has got her microblog built in a really cool way. it's a different html file with an iframe on the main site. I wonder if I could so something similar here? I think that gives more relevance to journal entries. I'd like to take better care of this website. There's really cool people here, I don't want to look so messy lol.

I've been feeling alright. A bit stressed with university; I get a bit down when I don't have time to study because of circumstances, today for example, I was meaning to finish studying for an exam I got this upcoming thursday, but I doubt I'll be able to do it because my allergies are killing me today. I can barely stay awake, let alone focus. I've got another important exam coming up in two weeks, and need to subtmit two assignments, one for next monday I think, the other one for this thursday. Adding up to that, I haven't been finding time to write music. I want to get that going again asap. I want to rethink projects, and I want to start releasing stuff, even if it is in a really homemade way. I think I can get something going.

I managed to submit the entry for the zine I talked on my entry from the 23th of April. It was a few days overdue, but it was accepted apparently. We'll see if it gets published.

Also, I've been meaning to make some youtube videos (there's a bit of an idea to mix that with music, I may expand on that sometime if it ever materializes), and I got my first 'script' finished. I would like to aim to record it on the 19th, but that is clashing a bit with my class responsabilities. We'll see.

A lot going on. It feels messy, but it feels good. I am a bit messy afterall, I cannot hide that in full. I'm comfortable in this mess. Hope I'll survive it, if my allergies don't get me first!

PS: In case anyone is reading this, I like all your sites!!! I'm such a big fan of all of you, I check neocities so often because the coolest people in the world are here, and those are you. Thank you for existing!! Carry on!!!

Thursday the 24th of April I had my first proper music class in college. This was both a very pleasant experience and probably the worst I've felt inside a classroom in a long, long time. I don't want to get too much into detail with this, but it led me to have a crisis and start studying like crazy for the following days, all up to this past weekend. The objective was to catch up with a bunch of content I had not seen since I didn't have the knowledge requirements the professor insisted we should have already. This didn't catch me off guard since it had been previously stated, what did surprise me was just how much everyone else in that room seemed to know in comparison to me. As I said, it was a crisis.

Studying like crazy led me to learn a lot, I feel a tiny bit more confident going into the next class this Thursday. Having said that, everything is up in the air as to how it might go down. Studying this way has also led me to something else: complete burnout.

Whilst I was studying I felt like the end rope of a bomb, burning into an upcoming explosion that was assured to happen. I tried to get as much done whilst the fire kept lighting, but now it has certainly detonated.

What I learned over that period of time is in for good; now I think I should establish a healthier study routine for myself. Also, a healthier routine overall.

I wrote this little blog post yesterday when I was feeling down. It's called If I were to die today, I would become a haunting spirit. Have I stopped feeling this way? Partly, but not really. This whole thing is a long, complicated cruel battle against myself, who knows when it might end.

On a lighter note, TV Guide is on its way. When I say this, I mean that I’ve been planning to make a section on the site where I’d list the things I’m currently watching (mostly seasonal anime tbf) and sort of shape it like those physical TV guides I used to have as a kid. This last part is a bit tricky since there isn’t all that much information to put on it, so I’ll just try to have it look a bit retro and pretty and that’s all.

I’m a bit against the idea of carrying on stacking things on top of the main site, I don’t want it to feel too overloaded, so I’ll have to become more creative with how I add this section to the site. The idea is to have the “guide” on an independent HTML file and have a display for it on the main site. I’ve also been thinking about adding recent movies I’ve watched, books I’m reading, a sort of ‘listen-list’? for records I intend to listen to, and so on.

I want to do things here, I find neocities to be so compelling and kind to the soul and mind.

My birthday happened as well, on May the first. I had a good time with my girlfriend and family. I got gifted a coffee bean grinder and I love it so much. For quite a while I’ve been meaning to build a coffee corner in our kitchen, have beans, a grinder, a coffee maker… all those things. And I love it so much. A good, really good cup of coffee can never be overrated.

My birthday also left me a bit disappointed as to some people; I was told not to expect others to act as I would, which is true, that’s a recipe for disaster, but still can’t help but feel a bit odd. I’ve been re-watching ‘The Last Dance’ and I keep thinking about that quote about Jerry Kraus saying ‘he loved people who just didn’t love him back’. Care, love, friendship, camaraderie... are words that get thrown out too easily, too carelessly, at least for my comprehension.

I have a knot tightened in my mind and I can't quite unravel it. It’s driving me mad. I need time to think but haven’t found any.

To leave on a lighter note: I really dig into making independent HTML files. My site is one big-ass HTML and it’s going to blow out of control anytime soon. I think I’m gonna separate some sections into their own HTML and have them linked here.

Oh ‘El Eternauta’, so good !

Hope you have a good day.

ram.

I've been on a depressive pit for the last ten days or so. I'm getting better slowly although due to no particular effort of my own to get back up. I think I've settled on my circumstances and this feeling started to blur away slightly. It mostly started due to my struggle trying to write songs, be creative, and re-think projects... Also, a lot of memories from past times have been haunting me for some time now. They are all good memories, but putting them in perspective and figuring out just how long ago they took place and also thinking about how they represented an oasis in a rather dire time... I don't know, they get me down. Having said this, Monday was good. I often complain about feeling like time is not enough to do everything I want, but then on Monday I somehow manage to take a nap, write the skeleton of a song, play some Night in the Woods, watch some anime, and go to bed early. Sort of felt like that TikTok that talks about doing all your hobbies at the same time, but it was good, I ended up feeling well.

Tuesday was a bit odd. I went to pick up my guitar which was left for maintenance. But on my way back home I started to feel a bit ill so I got home and crashed on the couch, then fell asleep. Had to do some chores around the house while my girlfriend was at uni. I DID manage to watch an episode of the Shoushimin Series !! The first season I mean. I wanted to watch it due to it being from the same author as Hyouka (my favourite anime of all time). I wouldn't have heard of it had it not been mentioned by a YouTuber I used to watch yeaars ago. I went back to him because of my desire to be involved in seasonal anime again. He mentioned the second season of this show which is currently coming out, He also said the finale for the first season was not very appealing to him, I don't really know why that might have been, but I guess I'll see it for myself. Some comments on the web I was watching it on, said the anime was trash but I mean.. a lot of people say the same about Hyouka.

That was the last series I wanted to add to my watchlist. So currently I'm watching: the Shoushimin Series, Kowloon Generic Romance, Lazarus, Yaiba aaand !! the latest entry to the Black Butler series. Now, about this one, I wasn't aware of the length of the series. The character designs seemed really familiar and it wasn't until I googled it that I figured out it was the black butler series. I haven't watched any of the previous seasons, but I might if this one gets me hooked. I do not want to go back to watch them now since the current arc seems interesting and I want to get my feelings straight with this one to then go back if I'm interested.

To finish this entry: There's a fanzine that got a first issue published a couple of years ago and I loved it. It's by a guy who sets up this punk anime convention. He made a call for people to submit whatever they wanted to be published in the second issue of this zine, and I've been trying to get some text written to send. I'd very much like to be part of it. I'm thinking about writing a column about the disappearance of online community-building spaces. I already have a draft written, which needs to be polished. We'll see how it goes.

PS: I cannot stop listening to Mei Semones, she's so kind for putting a new album out for my birthday, there was not need Mei, but thank you nonetheless!

Reaally long time since the last time I made a journal entry. A lot has been going on, mostly at work.. to put it briefly, I was in a position in which I technically lost my job and then regained it with slightly different conditions. It was really stressful due to the fact that I was not aware that I'd be rehired automatically until the very very end of last month. This all started on February 7th, so yeah, it wasn't great. Things are very much ok atm regarding that, I've been trying to sleep more and better, and make better use of my free time. I want to do a lot of different things, but I want to add them slowly. I always tend to change everything out of the sudden and end up at the same spot where I began. I'd like for it to be different this time.

I was running a campaing to get us a drummer, that took place at around two weeks ago. I had forgotten how, not stressful but plain awkward it is to talk to strangers and try to get something going on, musically speaking of course. That ended, somewhat succesfully but now I sort of feel like, dirty when using my instragram. Last year when I made the same thing in search for musicians, I ended up feeling the same way. Just like, odd.. It feels as if people had just come at my bedroom and just like, touching and moving things out of place. The smell of strangers, that foreign heat on the matress.. I don't know, I don't know. It makes me feel icky. I think I might deactivate my instagram, or just unistall it and leave it unattended for a while. I feel like I need a deep cleaning after that.

I'm also thinking that, if it ever comes to the point of being exposed to an audience, even a small one, I would really like to keep my things private. I don't know, I don't fancy any sort of external attention.

I started watching some anime !! I'm really happy with that. Seasonal anime, I hadn't done that in aages. I'm watching (long name)Yaiba, Kowloon Generic Romance, Lazarus, (not-currently-on-air) sakamoto days. I'm really liking all of them ! (he's just one episode in). Specially Kowloon, it looks freaky I like it.

Gonna calibrate my gutiar, get some new new strings and try to write some songs. I don't want to overthink things too much, I want to actually enjoy it. It'd be a tough fight against the deepness of the void that represents the constant force of self doubt and insecurities my creative process is made of, but fuck it !! I want to make somthing. I want to go to the bathroom. 468/750, not too bad.

PS: There is one guy I stopped replying to. I am really sorry, I did not intend to be a dick I just suck at saying no to people. I am truly sorry.

estructuras estructuras estructuras

Hay una extraña disonancia en mis procesos creativos la cuál me representa una complicación monumental a la hora de querer apuntar hacia mejores resultados. No entro en estructuras, no funciono con pensamientos analíticos. Mi mente artística funciona mejor en pequeños tramos de emociones fuertes y expresión de libre flujo. Pero esto no ayuda a mejorar, y quiero mejorar.

Quisiera algún día ser parte de la comuna de virtuosos creativos quienes hacen a voluntad, aquellos que no le temen a una página en blanco o una habitación en silencio. Hay un umbral muy grande en frente mío. Y no sé cómo cruzarlo.

Es extraño porque mi mente, para todo menos esto, funciona de manera extremadamente lógica. Rara vez tomo decisiones basadas en mis emociones, y siempre me jacto de hacer “lo correcto”, lo cual no necesariamente es siempre lo mejor, o lo que está bien.

¡A diario me rompo por tantas partes! No es sorpresa que me cueste encontrarme a la mañana cuando me despierto.

Hace poco ninjaweb publicó lo siguiente en el feed de neocities:

“Have you ever consider the weight of your words ? Can we express about anything on the web ? What about perceptions and opinions of others ?”

Pensé en contestarle, pero no me salieron las palabras para articular una idea clara y concisa de lo que quería decir, así que me cohibí.

Pero en mi propia página, la cuál solía tener el eslogan de “my digital brain and personal trashbin” voy a abstenerme de hacer lo que hago cada segundo en mi cabeza: dejar correr un flujo descontrolado representativo de fragmentos de la lengua castellana e inglesa que de vez en cuando, capturados en forma muy específica, toman sentido.

¿Hay gente que no piensa en el peso de sus palabras? ¿En la percepción de otros? Yo no podría escribir una letra de no ser porque estoy al tanto que esta página no la ve casi nadie. Tengo en mente siempre lo que piensan los demás. Tengo siempre presente que para cada cosa que digo, siempre hay alguien que sabe más, que puede corregirme. Esto último no me representa algo negativo, al contrario, considero que las correcciones e indicaciones de alguien con verdaderos y profundos conocimientos sobre algo que yo mencione es una oportunidad magnífica para crecer. Lo que me hace sentir mal, es la idea de estar hablando al mundo sobre un tema, a sabiendas de que no soy yo el más indicado para hacerlo.

Por eso me cohibo tanto. Por eso me cuesta expresarme. Siento que para expresar la más mínima de mis ideas, tengo que hacer un estudio de campo, una investigación en profundidad, una tésis universitaria, y aún así, no estaría satisfecho, porque siempre hay algo más allá, algo que se ignora.

Hasta me da rechazo releer mis propias palabras, porque la crítica y la capacidad para re pensar y sobre pensar y re contra analizar y dudar y re mil dudar pesa como un grillete gigantesco y, si lo miro, no escribo. Y si no escribo, voy muriendo por dentro a pasos agigantados.

No voy a releer, hoy no. Tal vez mañana.

14:22. It's just until now that I find the opportunity to journal today. This past week has been horrible.

My job situation is dreadful. Nobody knows where this is gonna get us. I've started looking for a new job since last thursday and in preparation for it I've been consuming nothing but programming content and theory and still none of it seems enough. I've managed to gather interest from a few companies of which I am not optimistic of their analysis of me. It all seems like a massive waste of time.

Also, I'm doing everything with such a massive feeling of despair. It feels the world is ending around me, I swear. Yesterday I tried to take a nap and, I kid you not, I slept around 40 minutes in which I dreamt constantly of fucking Linkedin. It's breaking my heart.

I'm so tired. So, so tired.

Hardly anything remains from the cartoonish lollipop-induced awakening I had yesterday. I had some trouble sleeping due to my irresponsibility and insistence in reiterating in my mind an idea I had for a blog post. I must have hit 6.5 hours, which isn't much of a difference considering I was at 7 hours yesterday, but if you take into consideration the hedonistic amount of hours I dedicate to sleep during the weekend, it starts making more sense.

Today is a gorgeous thunderstorm day. However, I'm cautious with that exclamation, since the bulk of it is yet to fall down. Checking the weather up just disappointed me a little. But anyhow, the cold rainy breeze that hit my face when I went out of my apartment helped make the commute easier. I've been listening to horror stories since I got out of bed. I find comfort in this.

I remember this one afternoon as if it were the wallpaper for my brain. I was a child who had just come back from primary school, my grandmother made me lunch and the afternoon had settled in full. Earlier that day, as I was getting into the school bus, we were all (adults included) amazed by the magnificence of the thunderstorm that was about to come upon us. The day had turned into night all of a sudden. And now the afternoon had settled and the rain had been falling for a couple of hours already. At first timidly, but now it wasn't holding anything back. I was on my old computer, a boxy beige machine that ran windows xp, searching for horror stories on youtube. I came across some of the now classic creepypastas, I came upon a video telling that pokemon story about Hypno being a child kidnapper. That one video in particular had the song that was made for that story. The "come little children" one.

I don't think I was particularly scared due to technically fitting the demographic targeted by Hpyno itself, but the song and the way it was produced stayed with me for much longer. I remember I got up from the pc and went to the living room/dining room (a small room that was both things at the same time, and also, neither). I went past a bedroom I shared with my grandmother for years (I don't recall if at this point we were still sharing it, although I would suppose yes) and caught a quick glance of her saints collection, lit up by a small candlelight. The house was, and still is, extremely dark due to the sparse presence of windows which were located mostly on the vertical extremes of the property disregarding most of the space in between. The living room was one of these rooms that existed on the far end of the property, it had this massive window which occupied the vast majority of the wall it was installed on and there they were two carob tree armchairs with odd red tapestry. My grandmother used to sit on one of those for hours (she did this for years, but eventually I stopped associating her and the armchair, although at that same exact spot was the last time I would see her alive and well in our house, in what would be 5 or 6 years later).

I sat next to her for a bit and she asked if I was ok, I said I was and remained there for a while to calm myself down. That room shined brighter than it was allowed by the world. It was fresh on a humid summer night when the heat won't let you sleep, and warm on the bleak winter afternoons.

I don't know if those places are allowed to exist in this world anymore. I certainly have not seen one as such in the past decade.

I hope they do. The children need those places more than anyone. Otherwise, they might worry that Hypno will in fact come to them, so many years before realizing that's not that bad of a plan after all.

I heard of a guy who would journal 750 words precisely every day. I do not know where that number comes from, but I liked it, so here's my attempt at it.

The humidity in the air is making me feel sick and sticky. For the first time in all summer mornings, I crave a shower more than I do a bed.

Last night the Superbowl was on. The Eagles were up against the Chiefs. We've been watching it with my girlfriend every year for the past three because of the trailers and the half-time show. This time it was Kendrick who did it and it was really good. By the time he took stage though, the game was already for the Eagles. I went to sleep as soon as he finished.

Last Wednesday, out of the blue, the government announced the dissolution of the agreement that gave a private entity half of the control of the organisation I work for. Now we are all going to be state workers. I say that and it sounds simple enough, the reality is we are being forced to sign our resignation, then expect to be rehired under a salary that could go from 80% of what we're making right now, or all the way down to 50%. To save time and effort I consider myself virtually unemployed. The whole situation felt like a slap on the face.

I´m currently looking for a new job (been at it for two days, which happened to be a weekend). Learning new stuff, and trying to figure out how the following months are going to look like. The uncertainty is not something in which I find comfort. At all. Especially with economic connotations. I don't know.

I may be needing more hours of sleep on a daily basis. I slept 7 last night and woke up feeling like the world was an old cartoon with the sun and flowers and cars all smiling at me. And that was 7 hours, picture 8! 9!! I don't think I've made it past the 6-hour mark more than 8 times in the past year. My body has certainly felt it. Increasingly through the last year, I started reporting more and more health problems. Like an old rusty pipe, I've been leaking slightly through multiple parts of my body. Why don't I go to bed earlier, you ask? There are a bunch of reasons, but I do not feel like delving into that right now, so let's just say: I'm a moron.

With my girlfriend, we went to watch Anora on Saturday night. We've been watching most Oscar nominees for the past couple of years (she does this more passionately than me). And with the case of this year's nomination, I feel pretty underwhelmed.

Anora was a nice film about a woman trying to escape the gruesome reality of low-income capitalism (and sex work, exploitation, sexism..) by marrying a dumb billionaire kid (of whom I think she sort of grows slightly fond for a small fraction of the movie). This doesn't fly well with his family and therefore she sees herself obligated to anulate the marriage. I couldn't help but think throughout the movie: "She's quit her job, now what's she gonna do? If only she knew early this wasn't gonna fly she might have not gotten involved at all". Very simpleton mindset of mine, maybe. At the end of the movie, the poor remain poor, the rich see no consequences, and the fight is lost once again. There is more to talk about this movie, I may expand upon it on a different occasion.

As I said, it was a nice one, certainly different from the hellhole that Emilia Perez represents. And oh dear good if my pinche puta vulva doesn't hurt when I think about this movie. Conclave was alright too, I have not yet seen The Brutalist, although it did throw me off that they used AI for some aspects of the film. I really need to watch I'm Still Here. The Substance was great, and a really important movie which I'm glad is out there. Wicked was also really good.

Going back to why I feel underwhelmed, I think it is because the good nominated movies are in fact good, but there's not a great movie I can stand behind as I felt in previous years (consider the ones I have yet to watch!). We'll see. I'd like to make a bingo closer to the ceremony, I could potentially share it with you.

Actualicé la página nuevamente, esta vez agregué lo que hablé ayer de traducir el sitio al español. Me pone contento tener ambos idiomas a disposición en la página, es una de las cosas que más me gustaba de la versión anterior.

También agregué unas tags (violentamente inspiradas por estas que están muy lindas) para marcar el contenido que es exclusivamente en español o inglés, y también aquellos que estén en un idioma pero con traducción próxima a realizar.

I updated the site again, this time I added what I mentioned yesterday about translating the site into spanish.

I'm happy to have both languages coexist on the page, that was one of my favourite features on the previous version of the site. I also added new tags (heavily inspired by these ones) to mark content which is made in one of the two languages, and for those that will be translated I added a 'pending translation' tag.

New version is up! Took me longer than what I thought it would but I'm quite happy with the result. I will expand on the experience on the blog section when I get time to sit down and write. Feels nice to have my own space up and running. I had issues with my previous page since I could never quite make it to function as a place in which to post work rather than being a linktree.

There are still some functionalities that I haven’t got around to make, but the barebones of it are all here. Somethings I'd like to work on in the future are:

• translating the site to spanish
• adding commments and/or an embed of my previous guestbook
• add the option to subscribe through RSS

Among others.

For now, and if you're reading this, I hope you like the page! Feel free to comment something on neocities if you do so, I'd very much appreciate it! :^).

Ok so journaling. Making the website from scratch has been fun and has kept me entertained vastly, but I’m starting to get a bitt tired of constantly working on it, not because I don’t enjoy it but for the reason that I have barely even done anything besides coding this.

I’ve been meaning not to publish it on to neocities until the whole site is done, but I may deploy it halfway through. We’ll see.

We went to watch ’Conclave’ with my girlfriend over the weekend; It was alright. I liked seeing the protocols and traditions regarding the death of a pope (I have not and will not check the authenticity of what was portrayed in the movie simply because I don’t care nearly as much).

I do have to say that I found the audience to be slightly annoying since they were laughing at the film at times when I believe they were missing the point. I heard some people complaining about the same during screenings of ‘Nosferatu’.

That being said, I might just be a tight ass.

Also, one of my wisdom teeth seems to be on its way out.

I struggle with prepositions just as much as on the very first day of learning english so, apologies.

On that circle of emotions people like to bring up from time to time, where does feeling like an utterly worthless and untalented blob fall? Genuine question.

I've been meaning to re-do my neocities page for quite some time now. I didn't particularly disliked my previous one, but I felt like it didn't represent me anymore. Also, the fact that I never got around to make it look good if it wasn't exclusively on 1080p resolution always bothered me, so I ended up scratching the whole thing and starting from zero. This is the result of that. Now I plan to update this frequently. I know everybody says that, but I (somewhat) promise!