pacificpurgatory

[pacificpurgatory]

06/17/2024

June 17th, 2024

REI has been my BFF as of late TBH…

THIS SUMMER i’m trying to cultivate a hippie troubadour-type vibe. go places, meet ppl, make stuff… need to get my dad lore 🆙

OLYMPIC NATIONAL PARK (!!) is gorgeous. i’d like to visit every national park in America at some point. this was the first one (since i became an adult and started counting, sorry Zion 🤭) i have a poster with all of them on it and and spaces to write the dates you visit them under each.

i bought a used book on wildflowers in the olympic mountains and identified the ones i came across. there weren’t too many in bloom because it’s still cold i assume. i also was looking for mushrooms but i couldn’t find any 🍄 i might return to washington next month for mount rainier. it rains so much 🌧️ i listened to a lot of Nirvana and The Microphones

i like wearing a big backpack when i hike cuz i feel like a mysterious wandering merchant selling various exotic wares. or an adventurer on a quest to save the princess.

this trail called storm king requires you to climb using ropes to get to the very top. i didn’t plan on doing that part at first but i have been trying to do things that i’m scared of recently so i did it anyway ⭐️ amazing view

so many ppl kept passing me on the way up…. i need to fix my cardio so bad 🏃 too much geek bar and penjamin damaged my lungs i fear 😔

i went to da beach and hiked along it. walking back, i found the perfect stick to hold. it had a slight curve in it like a samurai sword. before i die, i need to get good at surfing 🏄 how am i from hawaii and can’t surf? tragic. one day, i’ll live by the ocean again

last stop was hoh rainforest. kind of mid imo, but i did the easiest trail cuz i had to leave soon. too many people there, felt more like disneyland than nature

i managed to check out the bridge Kurt Cobain lived under in Aberdeen. that was cool 🎸 there’s like a memorial there

traveling solo has been pretty good for my self-esteem and confidence 🤔 u have to believe in urself in order to do it and also to have a good time/enjoy yourself alone

[pacificpurgatory]

06/04/24

June 4th, 2024

last week, i was a passenger in an accident at my job. two of my other coworkers in the vehicle had to go to the hospital. one’s still there. miraculously, i was completely unharmed. they were playing Heaven or Las Vegas by Cocteau Twins in the airport when i went inside. i prayed to god that night

houston was a lot of fun 🤩 i went with the purpose of hanging out and #chillen with some of my friends that live there: noah, austen, and brandon.

noah, i knew from high school and he moved to texas after. he works night shift so we would text a lot because he’d be the only other person awake when i was working. chill dude. he got sick tho so we only hung out once 😢

austen and brandon were first my friends through the internet. i think i became acquainted with them when i was 17 or so. last year, my job sent me to houston for training and i met them for the first time irl, but because i was there for work, our time together was rather limited. this recent visit, i came back in my own free time.

they took me to some dive bar they frequent in brandon’s neighborhood and i got to meet a lot of their friends. we told white lies to strangers there 🤭 roleplaying that we were different people than we really were

i saw brandon’s hardcore punk band play a show. they’re called mexican coke and they’re intense 😳 he plays guitar. i got kicked in the tummy by one of the people moshing 😔 other than that, very fun 🤗 then me and austen ate at whataburger (goated) 🤤

on my last day there, we went to some record stores and a butterfly garden and an arcade and other places around the city. i overheard two japanese girls speaking japanese at a thrift store and i conversed with them (in japanese 😁) they were nice. i’m very proud of myself for being able to do that 😼 a similar thing happened when i went to chicago too, with some older ladies. these girls were around my age tho so i was more nervous 😖 i think i would be a lot better at it if i had friends i could speak it with on a regular basis.

overall, a very nice weekend and hopefully just one of many more to come 🙂‍↕️ next time they need to visit me in vegas 🤬 i jest, i jest. love my bros ❤️

[pacificpurgatory]

05/09/24

May 9th, 2024

in the year 1871, after being scorched by flame, the city of chicago had risen from the ashes and was rebuilt a second time, garnering the nickname “the second city”

it is a fantastic place with a beautiful and overwhelming amount of history and american culture

like chief keef 🔫

it rained very heavily during a portion of my stay. however, after living in las vegas for so long, a city where you can count the amount of times it rains in a year on a single hand, i’ve found that i’ve grown an appreciation for precipitation.

i forced myself to go out alone and socialize with strangers one night, a necessary step for getting out of my comfort zone and growing into the person i’d like to be. i find socializing in cities other than my own easier because it’s far likelier that i will never see the person i’ve conversed with again, so any mistakes are easier to accept personally.

here are a few things i had witnessed during my stay that struck chords in me:

- two lovers embracing and kissing on a train platform prior to one’s departure

- a group of young adults trying to solve riddles whilst on the red line outbound for howard

- several street rats emerging from the grass of someone’s front yard, their presence only made known by squeaks of excitement(?)

i reconnected with an acquaintance i had met 9 months prior while attending a concert in chicago (weatherday and yaamc). he was actually first a fan of my own music, but after spending a day perusing wicker park and another in downtown, i’m confident enough in our relationship to call him a friend 🙂

when i was growing up, i had always wondered how my grandmother seemed to have friends all over the world. as i make my own connections with (wonderful) people myself, many of whom seem to be sporadically scattered across the globe, i’ve come to realize that it’s likely she has simply maintained contact with many of them and, when presented an opportunity to reconnect via the convenience of location, simply does so. i’m also learning that not everyone will be in your life forever, even if you’d like them to. that one’s hard to come to terms with.

[pacificpurgatory]

03/18/2024

March 18th, 2024

years ago, i thought i would die young and furious, with fistfuls of fire and a headful of hate. i dreamt of a death with importance, spectacular and purposeful in its completion. perhaps if i set myself ablaze the world could, for a moment, admire the flames. i would be beautiful.

within me resides a belief that if i look better, i will be happier. i’ve lived with body dysmorphia for most of my life, a side effect of being scarred for as long as i can remember. many times i have felt imperfect, flawed, defective from birth and living on borrowed time. i still carry an aversion to things permanent: tattoos, piercings, and of course, scars. i feel like i could always lose 10 more pounds. sometimes i forgo eating altogether, partly in pursuit of beauty and partly as symbolic self-destruction.

i am afraid. afraid of growing old. afraid of becoming ugly. afraid of being forgotten. i think everyone is, at least a little. i doubt i will ever overcome it completely.

but truthfully, life has been kind to me as of late, and the reasons i had for wanting to perish early and pristinely seem to become less and less serious to me everyday. maybe its not that deep. maybe it doesn’t really matter. maybe dying porcelain isn’t the most important thing in the world. maybe the body is a canvas to be painted upon by the unyielding forces of time and nature, beauty lying within the marks you’ve had etched into you.

once in a while, i remember the way i would think about myself back then and shed tears. i told myself things that i would never say to another person. hurtful things. how could i have been so cruel? so heartless? even today, sometimes those thoughts still come to me. if i could speak with my younger self, i would apologize and tell him things will work out in the end. he was just a boy, naive and scared. he would have adored who i am now.

i’ve learned to count my blessings daily, body included. a lovely lady-friend of mine has helped me greatly. how lucky i am to be able to do and to be. to move. to walk. to think. to talk. to run. to jump. to swim. to fight. to sing. to dance. to laugh. to fuck. to feel.

to love. to cry. to live. to die.

[pacificpurgatory]

01/30/2024

January 30th, 2024

yoo-taw… the waters of the Great Salt Lake are too saline for most aquatic life to live in, but it still looks beautiful from the surface 🐟 i visited my friend jason who lives in salt lake city. he used to live in vegas but moved to utah several years ago. now he has a gf and job and a life of his own out there. it’s always nice catching up with old friends, i feel like we really just pick up where we left off. i was supposed to go with some other friends from vegas too but they flaked smh my head… i had fun tho 😛 i went to the opera in downtown, it was my first time and tbh it was soo fun! a lot of people dressed up fancy. i went snowshoeing on a scenic mountain. i hiked a lot with my friend. i was never an outdoors-y person growing up, but lately i’ve been trying to become one so i’ve been doing a bunch of stuff outside. i even got new hiking boots a few weeks ago (thx REI!! ⛰️) we went to antelope island and saw bison. we climbed to the top of a mountain by the salt lake and also hiked around the entire perimeter of it, so we basically own that mountain now 😎 we had deep conversations about aesthetic symbolism and esoteric european occultism and also philosophical debates about tough questions like “would you rather have a gay son or a thot daughter?”

i had a great time being in nature and catching up with my good friend and seeing/meeting the people who have become significant in his life after moving away 🙂

one evening, we went out drinking in downtown and as we were about to call it a night and leave, some lone young woman on the street we were walking down asked us to escort her home because she trusted us for some reason. her name was brie (“like the cheese!”) she was from wisconsin. we made sure she got home safe but i don’t think she should have been so trusting of two random men in the first place… i felt like Batman that night 🥷🦇 had she asked some people less noble than us two, it could have been tragic. she had a boyfriend who didn’t care that she was out alone at night or with two strangers taking her home. the world can be evil but i’d like to believe we imparted some humanity that makes it easier to live in

[pacificpurgatory]

01/01/2024

January 1st, 2024

HAPPY NEW YEAR!! i hope everyone had fun 🙂 i had to spend it at work 😢i didn’t have any plans tho so i don’t really care. i also spent christmas working so at least my next paycheck will be nice (cope) i work for frontier airlines as an airplane mechanic. i think it’s okay. the pay is really good… 🤭 it’s overnight 9pm-9:30am which is kind of hard. i feel like you can never get used to graveyard shift. the human body is like, hardwired to be sleepy or something!? circadian rhythm is kicking my ass. also, working 12 hours even during the DAY is difficult. this is my second job as a mechanic after i went to school for it. i used to work for spirit airlines but i got fired lol. i’ve been here about 5 months. i really only went to school for it because it’s what my dad does and after high school i didn’t know if i wanted to go to college or not.

i’m the youngest one there. everyone else is like 30+. i have crazy social anxiety with people my age, let alone ones that are a decade or or more older than me, so i feel like a bumbling idiot every time i try to talk to someone. it’s like a self-fulfilling prophecy where i feel like i act weird around people and then i actually act weird because i psych myself out. I’M STUCK!!!!!

side note, does anyone else have freaky ass coworkers??? i have one that’s into swinging and let’s his wife sleep with other dudes. i have another one who is also into swinging but is the one that sleeps with other dude’s wives and also has an onlyfans. surprisingly, they haven’t… you know… crossed paths.

do you have any new year’s resolutions? let me know, i really love reading about other people’s goals.

i want to make more music. i want to care less about what people think of me. i want to find joy in little things. i want to travel more. i want to spend more time loving and less time hating. i want to make new friends. i want to speak louder. i want to make more eye contact. i want to never be embarrassed ever again. i want to be more grateful and i want to be happy and i want to be haunted and i want to be loved and and and and and lalalalalalalalalala

ok bye now

[pacificpurgatory]

11/22/23

November 22nd, 2023

CANADA! i went to canada to visit my friend k**** in edmonton. we were first friends via the internet and we have made music together (which u should totally check out btw… PLUH 🔊). with me came my friend from vegas, ulysses, who has been my friend for nearly a decade. i appreciated the company!

we took a small roadtrip from edmonton through the canadian rocky mountains and into calgary. canada is much like the US with a few differences. did you know their government has no term limits and they can call elections early or hold them late? aesthetically, it reminds me a lot of midwestern america. lots of farms and snow. we subsisted off of hella poutine and hella beer. in calgary, we went out in downtown and ended up watching a drag show in the basement of a gay club 🤭 it was so slay 💅 also we went to the zoo and saw penguins

how i met my canadian friend:

about a year ago, we were both in this one discord server for a musician we both liked (Asian Glow, korean shoegaze) and they were making a big collaborative album with songs from the people in the server for new years 2023. i mentioned that i was open to working together with someone and he reached out to me. he makes music as “AND COWBOYS”. i was pleasantly surprised by it (listen to “G-T-R” by him) and we collaborated on a song together. 1 song turned into 2, which turned into 3, 4 and eventually 5. we released our EP together this past september. i think he can shred guitar and bass like a demon. this was our first time meeting IRL. the whole EP was made with discord communication and google drive file sharing. outside of the music, we have played counter strike and halo together. he’s a straight chiller 😎 thank you k****! next time come to vegas ���

[pacificpurgatory]

11/07/2023

November 7th, 2023

last week, i had an amazing trip to california to meet my friends roger and liv! they’re from san diego. we met in LA first on halloween to see a concert. a japanese band: MASS OF THE FERMENTING DREGS! touring in america for the first time! they let liv hold the mic during the encore and we got to meet them afterwards. very cool 😎 the next day we went to little tokyo and the getty museum and looked at the art. in high school, i wanted to move to LA so bad that i would drive around in GTA 5 listening to music and acting like i lived there 😭 i had dreams of being an artist or something and spending everyday with cool artist friends on the california coast 🥲 i guess it kind of happened in a sense…

we took the amtrak train to san diego and they showed me around the city a bit and introduced me to some of their friends and i also had a chance to explore on my own. notable highlights include: local rock band concert on a pedestrian bridge above a freeway, five nights at freddy’s movie, and BEACH! the beach is always a pleasure… it reminds me of where i’m from (hawaii!) 🏝️

leaving was a bit hard because i was sad 😢 but i know we will see each other again, so that makes me feel better

またね！

[pacificpurgatory]

10/22/2023

October 22nd, 2023

my halloween costume :) link from the legend of zelda. i also got the archaic tunic outfit from the new game, but i thought it was too revealing 😳 last night my friend had a costume party thing at his house, that’s why i got the costumes. i actually like dressing up in cosplay a lot but its kind of an expensive hobby and i have to get better at things like wigs and makeup (ha, gayyy) truth is i’m a massive freaking DWEEB 🤭 sometimes it makes me feel uber lame but i guess i shouldn’t change what i like in order to try and be cool

when i was a kid i used to be obsessed with the zelda games. i remember when i was 9 my parents gave me ocarina of time for the 3ds and i couldn’t sleep all night because i kept thinking about it. i played it from 2am until when i had to go to school. i used to learn and play some of the songs from the games on piano. my favorite game was windwaker. what fascinated me was the sense of adventure and discovery they all had. the worlds were full of eccentric characters and unknown danger and it had a simple storyline of good versus evil plus a textbook romance love story. very comfy to my childhood mind.

admittedly, i haven’t tried the last two new ones even tho i cosplayed it. i just don’t have time to play video games too much anymore…

last night i had a dream where i made an amazing song. flow state. i could make no mistakes. i’ve forgotten it all now. three nights before that i dreamt i had a crush. it made me feel human again.

[pacificpurgatory]

10/06/2023

October 6th, 2023

hello. yesterday was my birthday. i turned 21. on the 4th, i went to karaoke with some people from my college class and celebrated with one at midnight in their apartment. i only take one class (japanese) cuz i went to trade school and got a job (airplane mechanic) so im just learning for funsies :) might try taking a few other classes next semester but i don’t want to overwhelm myself with school+work. anyways, yesterday i played guitar then exercised. i went to dinner with my parents at the cheesecake factory (goated) i ate fish tacos and smores cheesecake. they took me to the casino and i gambled (lost $66) then i went out with a girl to a bar but it was kind of lame so we went to the park and played on the swings. she’s sweet. afterwards, some of my close friends came to my house to chill. overall i had a really great day.

here’s my review of being 20:

i feel like 19 was such a bad year for me (wanted to k word myself) that i had to spend all of 20 in recovery, trying to pick up the pieces to rebuild. something i didnt foresee is how when u think u will be x_x soon, u make reckless decisions cuz u think u won’t be around to deal with the fallout, then if u decide u are gonna live, ur now forced to deal with the consequences of ur actions. sometimes i think about how i acted and feel like i’ve fucked myself and others up forever. i’ve tried asking for forgiveness but it’s not up to me and i guess i just have to accept that and move on. it is what it is. no use in throwing a pity party. i think 21 will be better because i’m in a better mindset to tackle my problems and have worked hard to put myself into more favorable external circumstances. i also started therapy. first problem i’m fixing is lack of self-esteem and lack of confidence. that will also likely solve a few other problems at the same time. i think i’ve already made great progress so i will continue 7/10

okei thanks for reading if u made it this far. im likely gonna post more on social media as a way to kind of put myself out there and build more confidence. i have to learn how to believe in myself again… something i havent done properly in years.