Raw Danger!

In a week, it will be nine months since I arrived up here. Things have been fairly quiet, which is good. Had some ups and downs with my health, as I hurt both my forearms and an ankle, and all at different times, then I was caught by a flu bug or something about a week and a half ago. This has resulted in missing some time at work, but since it has all been legit and not just playing hooky, the management has been cool about it. I think my work has been consistent and my ideas for getting things organized have all worked out well, so if the trade-off is that I miss a day here and there as my body slowly falls apart with age, they don’t seem to mind too much. However, I’m tired of feeling worn out all the time, so I’m looking to change up some things in a couple of weeks and try to be a bit more into taking care of myself.

Before that, I’m going to go back to California for a little bit. In August, payroll was tight and I was asked if I’d like to take a vacation. I said that I would, but noted that buying plane tickets is cheaper if there’s a little time between purchase and flight, and asked if I could get time off in September. They said yes and agreed to let me have two weeks, which is great. I’ll be off for a few days here, then in CA for like eight days, then back up here for a few days before I have to go back. It will be nice to get a break from the everyday routine, for sure. Plus two weeks to rest my old bones. I doubt I’ll get to see everyone I’d like to visit while I’m down there, and there are places I’d like to go but won’t due to time constraints. I’m just going to enjoy those that I can fit in and have the best time possible. Plus, I can grab some of my stuff from home that I left behind but wish I had now, like my 3DS and Vita, some of my movies, etc. The only really negative thing I’m anticipating is the weather, since it’s going to *finally* start raining here just as I leave, but it’s going to be in the high 90s down in CA. Which, I hate desert climate and heat, but what can you do? My line of work is really difficult for taking time off from about Thanksgiving until a little after Christmas, so going home when the weather is great is very unlikely.

But the entire trip should serve as a way to tell my brain, “you said you miss this, so here it is. Do you really miss it?” and get an answer once and for all. The first six months or so that I was here, I was pretty homesick. It might just be my adjusting to an entirely new place and type of people and climate and everything involved in leaving your old life behind, since I’d never done that before. I think most of all, it’s the people that I miss. I rarely saw them in person and kept in touch over the phone anyway, but removing the option to see them if the opportunity did arise, was a big deal to me. So I’ve kept in touch with most of the folks that are big deals to me, and the others I’ve checked in on and they seem to be doing fine, which is great. I like the idea of the people I care about being good, whether I can contribute to that or not. Over the last couple of months, getting caught up in work stuff and the aforementioned time spent ailing, I guess I just got past it and now I’m used to being here? I still miss people and wish I could see them, but it feels different now. I can’t exactly articulate it, but I guess just knowing that everyone is good, makes being so far away okay somehow? It’s still a thing where I’ll have a day here and there that I am jonesing for a person’s company or a type of food from back home specifically, but I think that’s probably normal. I have a similar thing with people I know who’ve passed away, where it’s always a sad thing, but most days I can just remember them fondly. Then there will be a day where you hear a song or something and it hits you just right, and the rest of the day is kind of a bummer. I think I’d probably be worried more if that didn’t happen, because while I am okay with being mostly dead inside, I’m not quite ready for it to be a 100% thing.

So anyway, I’m going to go home for a spell and hopefully get things out of my system until it’s time to visit again in a year or so, and then when I get back here I’m going to try and finally clean up the diet once and for all. I live in a place that’s great for walking, and now that work is frowning on working tons of overtime, I’m hoping to use that time to do at least a mile or two a day in addition to however much I’m walking at work. In a month or two, I’m gonna start seriously looking into moving to a nicer place that feels a little safer, as my lease is up in January. Even if I have to double up rents for a month or something, it’s worth it if the next place is enough of an upgrade. That’s about all I know for now. Seattle is okay. I wish I saw my friend Lish a little more than I get to, but my schedule never makes these things easy. CA will be okay and I hope to fit in as much as possible. Things in general are okay, and that’s good enough for me.

Only other thing of note: I see my stats in the wordpress app. The thing I wrote about Rainbow Harvest tends to get regular views daily, which is cool. More people should go see her in Mirror, Mirror, at the very least. But then I’ll have multiple views on my main page in a day from a lone visitor, and it shows the country as places like Germany and Finland. I am curious to know who it is and what they’re looking at? Or is it a bot that just happens to hit my site for something? The internet is a strange place.

Anywho, I guess that’s it for now. Maybe I’ll do a CA travelogue when I get back, but it’s probably just gonna be photos of giant burritos and wrestling figures. We’ll see.