Fall 2023

I took a break from blogging this summer. It was somewhat intentional as I had nothing to write. The format I had here was boring me and I couldn’t figure out what else to write. Still, I feel better when I’m writing. So not writing at all has probably done more harm than good.

My departure from the blog started out as an experiment with morning pages - a meditative practice where you write from stream of consciousness for 3 pages each morning. I found myself drained of the desire to write afterward, but I did feel immensely better about my life when I was done.

Unfortunately something or the other broke my sleep schedule and I ran out of time to write in the mornings. With that, my new writing habit was destroyed soon after it took down my blogging habit. I was left with no writing practice at all and I believe I suffered for it.

I have spent the time since then dealing with various large and small disasters - a family illness, a faulty stove, repeated anxiety attacks about the state of the house. I filled much of the inbetween times doom scrolling - a practice I can’t seem to replace with anything despite how bad it makes me feel. I’ve lost whole evenings to googling “news” over and over expecting something different each time.

Games

I did manage to play several games to completion during this time. My best friend and I beat Gunfire Reborn on Nightmare difficulty - this was not only the first time we finished it on that difficulty but also the first time we finished it since the final boss was added. We were able to stack my character with a ton of damage buffs that really helped us get through.

I beat the Pokemon Trading Card Game on Gameboy. That turned into a whole thing. I’ve started playing Pokemon TCG Live and buying cards again. The latest standard decks are quite fun and much of the coin flipping that plagued the game in the past is removed. We’ll have to see how long that lasts.

I also finished A Short Hike on Gamepass, Sludge Life on Steam, and a handful of games on emulator including Vectorman 2 (not as good as 1), Metal Gear (NES - way better than expected), and The Berenstain Bears Camping Adventure - which was just as good as I remembered!

I’ve been working on cutting into my backlog. I’m either dedicating time to finish each game or selling it (Steam games get hidden). I now have around 20 unfinished games, down from around 200 when I started this project in 2020. Many of the remaining games are the longest ones, since I focused on easy wins first. It feels good to have gotten this far, but the remaining games - many of which are JRPGs - seem daunting. I’m going to have to figure out a new approach if I hope to continue making progress.