#ngl i still want to take the train to mongolia one day (but not in winter! hence why i'd only apply if i can get multiple year & entry)

[thistransient]

- If I had a nickel for every time I posted a photo of a goose and it ended up getting over a thousand notes, I'd have two nickels. I would say 'who can fathom the whims of the tumblr audience', because photos I love often go totally unappreciated in favour of something random I shared on a whim, but clearly there is a trend here. Also, the first time around I warned new followers the goose was a one-time phenomenon, and clearly I lied. There may well be future geese, just keep your expectations reasonably low.

- The other day I was talking to a Japanese friend about how jarring it is to overhear one's native language when living somewhere it isn't spoken often. Forced to eavesdrop because you can't not understand it! (Unlike the blissful white noise attained by zoning out around a language that requires some focus to understand.) Recently a loud American guy has started turning up with a companion at my local breakfast joint and inflicting this very situation upon me at high volume. I might not mind so much if I couldn't still hear him when they sit at the very back of the shop and I at the very front. To be fair, a) they come at the same time daily so it's within my power to simply go earlier and b) I'm sure I've tormented enough people with my own public English conversations (although I don't think anyone will ever accuse me of being loud, after a lifetime of complaints that I'm nigh inaudible). In a moment of pettiness, however, I decided to bring my loud Canadian friend today and sit in the back at their usual table. "I can see why you call him your nemesis" he commented, after witnessing [hearing] the state of things. I felt somewhat validated.

- Further brekkie shop gossip (what a fulfilling social life I have, you see): my slutty bisexual summer completely failed to manifest, but we can still have awkward bisexual autumn. Last week the cute guy who also eats there regularly and I ended up putting our trays away at the same time. He looked at me (probably on the simple basis that I was standing next to him). I glanced back and then quickly away. Outside the shop, he was organising his scooter when something possessed me to make direct eye contact. He gave me the nod, and something possessed me further to smile radiantly in response (albeit under the mask). He smiled back. I ran away.

- Because I agreed to model for a friend at a rope class this weekend, I have been faithfully abstaining from anything that could overly aggravate my ribs in their healing (although this also means I haven't been socialising much, hence the most interesting thing recently being the breakfast shop dynamics) and just going biking instead (safe enough so far). The blissful but brief window of perfect fall weather I waited for all summer has already started edging into "I could go outside and gambol about without getting too sweaty, buuut actually now I'm cold and would like to stay under the blanket." (Complain as I might, I actually do appreciate the return of boot & coat season. Or at least for myself, raised somewhere around the 43rd parallel north, since it's apparently always boot & coat season for locals.)

- I suppose the counselling I started has been having some effect, because I've begun to get some of my shit together (some, not all, but better than nothing). However, I think I will still have to do my December visa run (that ironic ticket to Macau). Because I haven't bought a return yet, I started to ruminate on the possibility of getting another Chinese visa (my previous one was invalidated when I updated the personal details on my new passport)- I could in theory take the ferry to Hong Kong and do it at the same agency where I got my first one, except that things have changed post-Covid and one must enquire personally about their rates and conditions. I may have enquired and am awaiting a response...