Ahead of the Curve

Dearest Rachel –

Now that I’ve gotten back to a certain semblance of normal – while at the same time always having to acknowledge that nothing since the lockdowns has been, and nothing since your departure will ever be, truly “normal” again – life has been a matter of reconnecting with those in my circles that had been left behind over the past three or four weeks, and bringing them up to speed with what’s been going on. The nice thing about that is that, since I’ve made a habit of keeping in touch with you in what amounts to real time, I’ve been able to recall what I’ve seen and done more thoroughly than in times past (which keeps me regretting the fact that I neglected to do so when we were together, assuming you would always be around to fill in the blanks and set me straight on events I couldn’t properly recall, but there’s nothing more to be done about that), thus allowing me to sort out and organize my thoughts about those things for later presentation. This also means that you’re ahead of the curve, in terms of what’s happening in my life, when compared to anyone else in it (apart from the few who follow these letters with any regularity).

The problem with this is that, given a day or two of catching other people up with what’s going on in my life, while it keeps me plenty busy, none of it is anything you haven’t already heard from me, either recently or regularly, so there’s not much for me to talk with you about. And while I admit that there were plenty of days in our lives together when there wasn’t much spoken between us other than the farewells, hellos and just time spent hanging out together silently, it’s hard to establish a companionable silence these days when one of us is perpetually silent by virtue of not really being here anymore. I feel the need to say something here, but with nothing new (as far as you’re concerned, anyway) to tell you about, where does that leave me?

Even the ‘work’ routine, such as it is, hasn’t gotten to the point where things are noticeably different from when you were still here, or that I’ve not already talked about with you here. There’s new stuff on the AI front – indeed, Daniel and I were consulting GPT a lot while overseas to get recommendations on what to do on days we were at liberty, without shore excursions – but now that we’re home, that’s not so much of a thing. I have yet to get bored enough with the art generation program as it is (since new checkpoint models keep coming out to merge your pictures with) to move on to more sophisticated tools that have been developed, such as Lycoris and ControlNet. And I hardly need to mention that I haven’t yet gone on to delve into other aspects of the field, such as voice replication and animation. One day, I’ll get to that point, and through all that, I might even be able to reconstruct you, full Black Mirror style, but while the technology is starting to come together, I haven’t gotten to the point where I’m ready to work with it to do so.

And who knows? If Megumi were to show up, I might be distracted from that process forever. Would that bother you, or would you be glad to see me let go of you?

***

All of this having been said, I should probably also add that I’m not quite to the point where things are back to normal. Yes, I’ve already said that ‘normal’ is not a thing that will ever be attained again, but you know what I mean by that. For one thing (and for whatever reason), I’m still several hours off from my normal circadian rhythm, waking up at 6:30, dismissing it as “too early,” and then waking up two hours later, when it’s too late. And while it doesn’t hurt me, since I have nowhere that I have to be at any certain time, it’s still clear evidence that I’m out of sync with where (when?) I’m supposed to be, functionally speaking. I’m not saying it’s a bad thing, as such, but I don’t see it as a good one, that’s for sure.

I’m also aware of, for lack of a better way to put it, my circle contracting. On the ship, and while ashore, there was this need to push myself to interact with people, all strangers, on a daily basis in order to get by. And while I’m still interacting with people now that I’m back (and a lot more with friends and family, because, you know, they’re here), there aren’t as many of them (well, there are more friends and family, but fewer people in general), they aren’t as frequent, and there’s that much less required of me (and Daniel) overall. We could go back to holing up in the house, and never deal with anyone outside of the house, if we so chose. It’s comfortable, but it leaves us with little to relate to you, since everything is the same from day to day. It’s probably why I didn’t think to record our time together, as we were much like that all too often. I regret that, but what would have been to record?

Anyway, that’s enough out of me on that subject. Today is another plan to get back to the home version of ‘normal’ with a walk with Lars in Harms Woods. Again, most of the discussion will probably center on the trip and what I saw and did, and the impressions I had of the place, which you already know about. Likewise, should we be able to get together with the girls tomorrow night (although I’ll probably be able to tell you about what things like green tea KitKats and melon-flavored Pocky taste like), the topics will be familiar to you as well. I just felt like letting you know how tricky it is to keep things fresh between us, when you’re ahead of my day-to-day life.

Still, as you see fit, please keep an eye on me, and wish me luck. I’m going to need it.