Today’s deck is Tarot, Your Future Is In The Cards by Igloo Books.
You can see why I’m being so specific with the name, because the box just says TAROT and that’s it.
It’s a neat starter kit sort of thing, though the cards are literally paper-thin, and while I’ve talked in the past about thinner cards being better this is TOO thin.
I was reminded of a video Alec Steele made where he tests cheap Amazon tools and brings up the very curious paradox of how you don’t want to spend too much when you’re just starting something, but novices are the ones that need proper and good tools the most also.
Today’s reading is kinda ominous, but its meaning is clear: “Remember that failing is part of the path to success”.
I didn’t sleep well today. I’ve had very restless dreams lately just in general (as tends to happen whenever my brain is unravelling itself), but today specifically it was nightmare after nightmare.
There’s two dreams specifically that remained with me long enough to write them down.
In one I was stuck in an elevator that would just start shaking violently in all directions suddenly because it was possesed by a demon and you needed to hold onto a charm in your pocket to make it stop but that became harder and harder each time.
In the other I was in my childhood home using a machine that built a mask on top of your face that was made out of colored hot candlewax, and then after going through so much pain to get the maks I stand up and it crumbles as candlewax is wont to do and I’m disappointed like “all that pain for nothing?”.
The latter one should be ovbious if you’ve seen me complain about having nothing to show for my efforts, but the former makes sense when you know that I used to be scared of elevators.
The funny thing is that the fear was very specifically born from a lack of trust in infrastructure. That fear of elevators was gone when I moved to Japan and I was inconvenienced quite a few times from elevators going through maintenence.
The nightmares continued after waking up because I had to make a single phone call to the embassy which resulted in them sending me an email with a bunch of requirements that aren’t hard but executive dysfunction means that seeing a LIST of things to do freezes me.
…in hindsight, that’s probably why the approach of “make a list of things and cross them off as you’re done” did more harm than good for me.
As a treat to myself, I did go to Karaoke and try out Midnight Blue.
I’ve been theorizing for a while that my voice range is very specifically “J-Rock singer”, that sort of “Not twink enough to go full female idol” point.
It’s probably Contratenor on account of female songs on the lower registries being no problem, but I haven’t checked.
An interesting detail I did notice is that in my first attempt I was trying to give it the kinda gruff cadence the original has but not only was I straining my voice needlessly, turns out the song itself basically pushes you to sing that way.
I also tried out my favorite Uma Musume song and you might be surprised to hear I hadn’t tried it out in a hot minute. Part of it is that I only recently started trying out Karaoke again and last time I tried like… two years ago or so it was Too Much.
I’m glad to report I didn’t die trying it this time around so yay!