So Many Little Snippets

Dearest Rachel –

It feels like I jumped the gun, to talk about Anime Central like I did yesterday morning. Not that my opinion about it has changed; not in the slightest. If anything, I’m convinced that staying in the Rosemont area over the weekend for subsequent conventions is no longer going to be worth it going forward, especially given the late-night lineup (or the lack thereof). I’m a little less than thrilled about my parents’ reaction to the description of my disappointment, though. Dad, in particular, actually seemed pleased with my assessment, almost as if he was happy that I was giving up on this phase of my life. I’m hoping he was simply gratified that I was weighing the value of staying there against commuting, and making a reasonable and informed decision based on my experience, as opposed to throwing good money after bad simply for the sake of tradition, but it certainly didn’t feel like that. It makes me want to hunt down a few good titles and watch them, just to remind myself I’m still part of the community – but if I do so on my own, what sort of community am I part of?

No, the reason I’m chagrined about having written to you about ACen right then and there is that, after a day with two letters to you, I’ve no idea what to talk with you about today. So often, there are mornings I wake up with a dream to relate to you, but those have been few and far between lately – maybe it was due to trying to assemble footage from one port or another, but now that that’s no longer an issue, it isn’t as if my mind has been working on getting the internal studio back up and running, for whatever reason. Either that, or whatever it’s been putting out has been serviceable for the moment, but otherwise forgettable – oh, wait. Well, okay, I guess I have to concede that, but that’s been the better part of a week; it doesn’t give me anything to relate to you for today.

So with that having been said, I decided to wander through the drafts I’d started at one point or another, to see if there were any thoughts I’d begun at some point that I might be able to finish and send to you. There are so many little snippets that might be fleshed out – over a hundred at this point, in fact. Granted, they’re a fraction of the number that I’ve completed and sent to you, but it’s a lot of material to work with… in theory.

In practice, however, there are plenty of reasons why all of these trains of thought were derailed and never finished. Some proved to be based on a mistaken premise – for instance, there was one that anticipated where I’d find the tape of Daniel’s birth, which I still have yet to track down. Others were dreams I needed to write down in the moment, but would never have the nerve to actually publish, given the content. You might well have appreciated them, perhaps, but there’s no sense in subjecting the internet at large to them. Others have to do with moments when I thought I’d latched onto “Megumi,” only to be proven to be quite mistaken.

And with that, I should add that many of them were a product of the moment in which they were started, a moment that has long since passed me by. For all that I try to avoid talking about current events, it sometimes can’t be helped – what I have to tell you about often springs from what’s happening around me at the moment. Not just on a global level, but on a more personal level, as well. There’s no point in going on about my thoughts while Dad was on the point of death, or while I was aboard the Serenade of the Seas, now that he’s not and I’m not. I’d revised and reconstructed a few of those snippets into letters during those time frames, but at this temporal distance, so much would need to be adjusted as to preclude even working with the original framework; best to start fresh, on a completely different topic.

So – and this might disappoint you – there are so many of these little snippets that despite having teased you with acknowledgement of their existence, I have to tell you that they still will never see the light of day. I can’t do much with any of them at this point, unless circumstances change back to where they were when I began that. Given the old observation that ‘you can’t step in the same river twice’ (since the water constantly flows downstream from where you are, often times faster than you can keep up with it), that’s just not likely.

Which means I’m still stuck for a topic for you for today. Or am I? I’ve managed to make this acknowledgement into something of a topic in and of itself. Still, I almost wish you could press me for more details on those stories I can’t – or won’t – complete. If I were to be questioned about them, I might go into more detail. Like you, I hate to see effort go to waste, but there’s not much I can do about them for now.

Still, I suppose I might as well at least as for you to keep an eye on me, and wish me luck. I’m sure I’ll need it all the same.