in pursuit of perfection

✦ in trying to create “the perfect blog post” I have proceeded to not publish anything for two months.

⏾ So tonight I’m writing this all in one go and dealing with formatting later! Stream of consciousness writing is what you’re getting, dear reader.

ᯓ★ Now, to start my story with the events of this week…

I went to the end of the Nagahori-Tsurumi-Ryokuchi line on Wednesday, to Kongoji. The name of that subway line is a bit of a mouthful. I think it’s kind of fun to say, though!

“Stumbled upon” is a bit of a lie. Ever since my friend Meije showed me pictures of this temple, I knew we had to go see it! It was only accessible by a devotee’s guidance. The architecture inside was divinely stunning, with intricate gold trim, lanterns, bells, and all. The high ceilings were lined with paintings of every zodiac. As both of us were born in the year of the snake, we were instructed to offer a prayer to its guardian deity. I wonder if it’s an acceptable practice to pray to a deity you only just became aware of?

⛧°. ⋆༺☾𖤓༻⋆. °⛧

We stumbled upon a temple with hundreds of koi.

Also… we prayed to a holy tree. Each of the three parts was blessed to take away the pain of a certain part of your body, your head, your stomach, and your legs. We both touched the middle one, for stomach.

I wish I could have understood more of what the guide was saying. My Japanese religious vocabulary is truthfully rather limited. However, I knew she spoke about death very casually and happily, but not in a suicidal way… in a “death comes for me when it does, I’ll be blissful about it, as I am now.” I liked hearing her perspective.

We shared a few laughs and stories with the devotee and said our goodbyes, with the next stop being Tsurumi Ryokuchi Park.

⋆⊱༻𖥸༺⊰⋆

hello heron!

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beautiful subway tiles.

We enjoyed some ice cream and played gacha for some cute hello kitty girl keychains! aw! Meije turned the info pamphlet into stickers for me. She’s so talented I can’t!!

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The one on the left is now named “Tina” for reasons I cannot explain here. Also, random, but listening to Addison Rae always feels like a very fitting soundtrack while I’m writing.

This week my stomach issues had a flare up again. Usually if my stomach hurts, I sleep it off and feel fine the next morning. I knew something was wrong when I woke up and it felt worse than the night before, agh. Maybe the excessive amount of ramen I eat here isn’t helping….! So, I called off work Sunday and slept. I probably could have dragged myself through the day, but since I noticed my hair has been thinning again (probably due to stress and such) I took the day off guilt-free. And no, it’s not the bleach. It doesn’t affect the root of your hair like that! Just my brain, duh.

⋆⊱༻𖥸༺⊰⋆

I designed a discord banner when I couldn’t sleep.

love a good whiteish grey aesthetic

⟢ My work sent me to western, semi-rural Kyoto today. Yet somehow, on my way back to Osaka, I ran into my coworker on the loop line, even though she was coming from a completely different place. (what are the chances, and considering trains come every 5 minutes… what??)

She joked our paths must be intertwined by fate and it honestly felt that way… a city of 2.8 million, and I end up in the same train car, at the same time as her? It’s not like we live in the same area either, unless you think Osaka Castle and Tennoji are close by!

By the time I got back home, it was 11pm. I don’t like being in my work clothes for almost twelve hours. It was 37° with high humidity in Kyoto today, too. It made for easy small talk with coworkers, though! A conversation I overheard….

「今日はちょー蒸し暑だなー」

“It’s sooo humid and hot today, huh?!”

「ホンマに！」

“Seriously!” (kansai dialect).

My OC Kiera is begging for attention in the corner of my brain right now. Tomorrow I’ll draw her (or write an excerpt or something). After a morning meeting, I am having a creative day with Meije! And Pierre offered to use my lovely kitchen to cook a French or Italian dish for dinner. Ce sera tarpin bien, je suis pressée!

I sure hope that’s right!

ᯓ★ They taught me “tarpin,” slang used in Aix-en-Provence/southern France which I believe is equivalent to beaucoup. I haven’t studied French since high school but want to learn again. So, I shall.

As I’m typing this Google Maps is thanking me for my contributions. I love being a Google Maps warrior.

I should review the minuscule 6-machine gym I went to with Kaela… hmm… next time! And by next time, I mean tomorrow. Though I’m not tired, so I will continue to stay up a while. ✦

It’s odd but nice, living on my own and being able to have both more, yet simultaneously less control over my life. By less control I mean eating a mediocre baguette paired with a sf redbull for breakfast without judgement. Though I do want to try a peach mint cigarette, and also to live my life with more yet less restraints. Disciplined but also less serious. I look back at the times I cared so much about what others thought with both regret and compassion for my past self.

For too long have I lived to be palatable to others, when (as corny as it is) being my weird, whimsical, true self has brought me closer to where I want to be, near friends I want to spend time with, moreso than I could have ever hoped for. I am part of a DND group Saturdays with some silly weirdos who have my back and I have theirs. I wrote in my journal back in January that I’d love to have a group of friends to play DND with and, lo and behold, here they are! I’m playing a half-elf druid named Freya Silvenka.

✦ She feels a bit flat to play because I haven’t fully stepped into her role yet. (And our sessions have been cancelled 2 3 weeks in a row). She’s a lot like me so far as you’d expect… I feel like my personality is an interesting blend of bubbly and stoic- but since I wish I could show more sides of myself more openly, so I am going to embrace my failure girl tendencies through Freya! My knight (Mattheus) already switched sides for the charming swindler/conman-esque warlock (Dima)… but hey, Freya’s strong. She’ll get through it after screaming at the sea for a few hours just like my miis do in Tomodachi Life.

“the SEA!!!!!!!”

or we can all be fierce like Paige.

Anyways, that’s all for today, my 3 lovely readers. I’ll see you next time. Hopefully before my airport adventures August 7th, but we’ll see! The only thing I can promise is no promises!

~I won’t be far~!

~Iristars