09.30

Good wishes today!

I hope everyone is doing alright.

This week has been very busy it seems, at least when I sit back and look at everything it seems that way. I've spent a few of the days spending time with friends I haven't for a while, spending time with some family as well. Most of all, I've been keeping myself busy with some commission work and doing music work as well behind the scenes! I've had some down time to enjoy myself a bit more however, so it's been nice to kind of remind myself to take some breaks every now and then.

At the start of the week, I received my first Hajime Shino cosplay in a while! He is one of my favorite characters in the world and he is from the series "Ensemble Stars!!", which is an idol franchise. I am not much into 2D idol franchises, but there are a few that are very dear to my heart and Enstars is one of them for sure. At this point, I want to say I perhaps have seven or eight of his costumes, maybe nine even? It is a bit of a goal of mine to have all of his costumes haha~ I really cherish the character and wish I could be as kind, gentle, and thoughtful as him. He really thinks of everyone around him and is careful with everyone as well. I think I am a bit like that, but there is always room to grow. Nonetheless, he is really admirable for me!

Some friends and I will be dressing up in this costume together to match at Anime Weekend Atlanta, which I will be attending as I will be performing in the idol festival at the event! Alongside being able to showcase some of my new music, I will also be able to see some friends I really care for and connect with very well. It will be the first time in so long since I've seen them all and even better is we've all grown really close with one another since then! I was really happy when they invited me to join in with them for this costume. I had cosplayed for a really long period of my life (though I only ever really cosplay Hajime anymore ORZ; - one trick pony?) but was hardly ever invited to join in groups, so joining in a group with people I really cherish as a character I adore with all my might is like a dream for me! It is probably a bit of a silly dream, but for me it means a lot! I'm really looking forward to it.

Due to working so much, I haven't had much time to spend outdoors. I work out pretty frequently but most of the time I am cramped up indoors doing so. I somehow convinced my sister to tag along with me to walk one of my favorite paths! It was a shock and we did have a bit of a trade off, but the weather here, albeit rainy, has been a lot breezier than it has been for quite some time! When the weather is nice, we need to take advantage of the day, at least in Texas. Normally, the path is 4 miles and 4 miles back, making a total of 8 miles to walk, but it was the hottest time of the day and my heart was giving a bit of grief, so we didn't walk the full path. I hope I can return soon though and do the full path! It is really beautiful and this path actually crosses through many parks throughout the Houston area and connects them all. I believe it spans over 40 miles across the city? Don't rely on my numbers, haha!

I saw these bean like things on the path too, I wonder if they were actually edamame of some sort or some other type of bean? They were a bit big though. It may sound a little uneducated, but I've never seen something like it and had to take a (sadly blurry) photo. They were just cute and fun to see and giggle at.

I've done two different legs of the path so far, but I like the more local leg of it than the other part I've been on. The other half had raspberries lines up along the path as I went before though, so I kept treating myself. It didn't seem as populated though, that second half I had done before, a little more closed off. We even passed this big bush of wooded area that had a creaky door noise going on and on, though I couldn't see any sheds or anything that could have been making the noise from my eye view. I wasn't going to investigate though, I've seen too many scary movies to test something like that.

Speaking of scary movies, in exchange for the walk, I promised my sister I would join her to see something in theatres and we settled on "Malignant", the new film by James Wan. We are both really big horror fans and although I heard some mixed reviews, we wanted to give it a shot. It kept my attention well though and although there were quite a few cheesy parts, it was very campy and made me think of a modern day take on a classic 80's horror. The best way I could describe it to people who asked after the fact was "think of the Poltergeist but make it more of a slasher and it is not a movie, but a Tales from the Crypt episode." I don't think those were the exact words, but it was certainly something like that. It is hard to necessarily describe everything the movie was, but it was entertaining. I think some people went in expecting something else, so that's why there was some disappointment. It was nostalgic in a way for me though and just seemed like good, campy horror, and I like that!

The end of the month is here and that means it is time for.... ta da ! "The Diary of Our Years Together" has officially released! I've spent most of the day doing press. It is the first time I've sent out a press release despite releasing original music since 2018. It is a little embarrassing it's taken so long, but sometimes I feel a bit embarrassed trying to talk myself up to people too! Either way, I would feel embarrassed, haha. But I figured, as an independent artist with so much love put into this project not only by me, but by artists all over the world who joined me in this team, from the USA to Italy, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Spain, and Japan, I wanted to really push all the love and efforts from everyone who helped make this possible. I've already been able to make some really cool contacts just in the day doing so and I look forward to the future!

It has been a bit stressful, I can't lie. So much of the time I spent doubting myself. Although I had the best team in the world behind me, I was still doubting myself. I got really caught up in "what ifs" which is something a bit strange for me. I suppose as I was showing myself as authentically as I possibly could with my new voice and who I have become, I was more emotional with everything. I kept going in circles of comparing myself to myself and looking at it now, that really did me no good. I am beyond peaceful with the person I am becoming, but I put so much energy in how others would perceive things. It took me a really long time to come to this point. I was so worried about if people would like my new voice. I grew so much as one voice with everyone, I made a security blanket with each new release knowing everyone would be there to support me and back me up. But with a voice unheard, a voice I had lost much of my range which many coined as why my voice was "impressive", there was a lot of insecurity.

I've gotten to a point I don't necessarily care. The music I want to make, I know the voice I have now can do it better than I would have ever been able to before. And while I cannot hit those high notes full of power and my head voice isn't as soft and gentle as it once was, I can now go really deep and that in itself is cool, haha! My voice, at this point, has dropped two whole octaves. I still have a lot of work to do retraining myself, but I think this release has been a strong effort if nothing else. I have so much more I want to do from here on out, I want to grow even more, not only musically but as a person through music.

I'll keep working hard.

Until then, I hope you can enjoy "The Diary of Our Years Together" to it's fullest.

TODAY'S SONG | sweet magic ink by chaton on the note

Goodbye for today,

love.

melancholiaah!