flexagon: (Default)
I had coffee with [personal profile] mindways and he noted that DW posts don't always capture the gestalt of my life, which is true -- so let's start with an overview: die Gestalt. )

Rightly or wrongly, I realize that I've never tied the quality of my own life very tightly to the (much) larger things going on around me. Where does this attitude come from? I've just always noticed the heterogeneity of things, and noticed that stuff affecting 90% of people leaves 10% of them alone. I remember being really struck, in my 40s, by how many people will respond to "how's work going" with a reply at the company level, about how their company is doing; and that's rational, reasonable. But I never once have answered at that level. It's more nuanced when talking about governments, but: here I am in a good town, in a good state, under a shitty federal government. It's bad, but a good life still seems possible, and open to me specifically (although yes I care about others, and I do get sad over the big stuff).


And events of the week included:

  • Not one but two circus shows -- Level Up (a local show with every act inspired by a video game), and Passengers by 7 Fingers. I watch these things as an impassioned amateur, always looking for some small floor or acro move that I might replicate, and in this case I saw two. One was a drop-back with one hand, made flashier by holding the second hand behind the back. I think I could do that within one or two practice sessions, and I'm gonna try. The other, going from a backbend, was a little hop over the arms (which bend) into a chest-stand-style rollout. I would want a spot for this, but it sure looks easier than a full hop over straight arms. And also less requiring of flexibility than a fully controlled lower to chest-stand. I'd love to try with a spot.

  • Reading a lot of Margaret Atwood, as the bug and I chug along through The Blind Assassin. It's definitely an exercise in attention management; I can get sucked into it, but it takes longer than with an easier and faster-paced book, so it rewards longer spans of reading. I do love Atwood's trenchant take on small things, and her sheer precision -- a young woman's lipstick isn't red, it's cerise. The wallpaper has a specific pattern with a name. The narrator as an old woman is far more observant and precise in this way than the same narrator as a younger woman, which delights me and makes me want to get old. I don't want all my reading to be like this, but it's a good reminder that there are different kinds of reading, too.

  • Covid vaccination! I was afraid I would not be able to get one this year, national policies finally affecting my body in an obvious way. The interplay of CDC, ACIP, state-level and other recommendations are a giant mess but, on the ground, I was able to self-attest to CVS that I qualified for it, and they stuck it in my arm. The next day, yesterday, I got super tired and couldn't really invert, and fell asleep on the couch after doing what I could at open studio.

  • A good handstand lesson, in which... this will horrify [personal profile] justplainuniverse, I'm sure... I think I managed to jump and push shoulders open at the same time, on purpose, for maybe the first time ever. It felt really strange. But yes, for all these years I've been 1) jumping, 2) losing track of time, space and my identity while motion happens, 3) trying to figure out where I am, and 4) pushing my shoulders open if the situation seems to call for it. Because I couldn't "push earlier" during the lost phase (too lost), and I couldn't push simultaneously. I did it and dang, I hope I can keep doing it. All of this followed from a simple bit of feedback I got from a substitute coach the week before, which oddly sounded negative ("sorry, you just got unlucky in this one way") but was very, very actionable.

  • A few crossword puzzle personal best times. Construction is paused, and solving benefits from impatience.



I could keep writing for some time. I had another interesting talk with the bug about whether house projects viscerally feel productive or not. And I could babble about my video game, which continues to have both frustrating moments and "ooh" moments and which I don't have to feel guilty about playing. I've started to go through my fancy boots, wearing each pair to decide whether to keep or sell them, and I think I'll put a few other things up for sale too. I have thoughts, continuing thoughts, about AI and climate change and pronatalism (as it rises on the left as well as on the right, how everlastingly glad I am to be sterilized!). And I am worried about the joints and antidepressant levels of several people around me. If any of those sound interesting, comment; I could go into it. But for now, I will put nuts out for the squirrels -- I never see them anymore, but would like to remind them before winter that this is a useful place to know about -- and get a few chores done.
flexagon: (squirrel coffee)
Life continues to overall be fabulous, yet somehow the emotional tone of this last week has been "For the love of all that's healthy, stop setting yourself on fire and then getting the ashes all over me." No, that's not aimed at anyone here. Somehow I had about three days in a row where I wasn't home much at all, and that put me out of sorts, especially since one of those afternoons should have been a 1-hr coffee and it turned into a long, draining conversation about something that not only isn't my problem, it shouldn't even have been my companion's problem. That companion really, really wants to stick a bean up their nose. Different companion is spectacularly pragmatic, but that pragmatism is meeting severely limiting health problems in a way that turns life into an energy-management game, and it's sad to see after knowing them in more energetic conditions. A third person wanted to fling themselves back into the arms of a disappointing ex, for a while there... well, some things have to be lived through and aren't to be helped via advice. It's just harder to let it roll off me, when I care about the people in question.

Okay! Things also happened this week that were expansive and wonderful, and it isn't fair to leave them out: I had the best workout in many weeks, all alone at the gym for a couple of hours on Weds. I went out paddling kayaks on the Charles River, which I hadn't bothered to do in my (ulp) 31 years in this city until [personal profile] apfelsingail came along and poked me to go with her. We saw a cormorant pretty close up, and lots of familiar places along the Esplanade but from an unfamiliar viewpoint. Had a great time weeding at a library and then having lunch with fellow escapees from Zillian. And to round it out, there was some great acro practicing and finally a class with returned coach, Tiny Person! (*explosion of rainbow hearts*)

Someone on the conservative right got shot dead this week, literally as he'd just started to discuss gun violence with someone from the audience. The person is on the record as saying it's worth it to have some deaths every year so that we can have the Second Amendment... wonder how he feels about that now. "I never thought leopards would eat my face", probably. I'm supposed to be having feelings about "oh dear, not political violence", but like a lot of Americans out there I've become kind of numb. Thinking immediately about the political consequences, rather than about the actual person/people in question. And part of me is like: am I really supposed to care about a stranger whose views I hated, when I'm already feeling stretched thin by caring about a much smaller circle than that? Human limitations... at any rate, this thing feels far away, distant.

I've been playing a lot of Blue Prince when I have time. I'm pretty sure I've figured out one way to roll the credits, but that's a relatively early victory in a deep puzzle-box. Also I haven't even done the thing yet. The bug likes it, and sits with me sometimes -- speaking of which, we had our anniversary date on Saturday! 22 years of being married. I hope he doesn't mind my mentioning this in a paragraph that started with a video game. We're often at our best when being playful together, so it's only a little inappropriate. <3

Lastly -- since this post is happening a bit late -- I had a drink and snack with my old boss, and one of my old coworkers, last night. It was nice to see him, but I don't think we have a lot in common outside of our thoughts about work and management. How strange that there's this entire area of compatibility / incompatibility that used to be so, so important and that now feels far more abstract. A deal breaker maybe, if I learned that someone was a total tyrant at work, but probably not a friendship maker. Transitions, continuing.
flexagon: (emily)
So for those who aren't local, Be It Known that the vast majority of apartments here have leases beginning on or around September 1. Simultaneously and relatedly, the streets fill with U-Hauls and the sidewalks fill with random boxes and pieces of furniture marked "FREE". This last phenomenon is called "Allston Christmas" after a local suburb, but it happens across many towns in the area. It's like a big, disorganized Everything Swap.


  • I picked up two new kitchen pots from the squirrel, and ended up giving him an onion chopper device that he loves... amusingly this was not as a direct swap, but it worked out well.

  • Tuesday I spent about four hours helping a distant-ish friend pack stuff intended for a storage unit. I learned how to vaccuum-bag, which was cool, and MacGuyvered some garment-hanger boxes, and then was able to ferry a bag of stuff to the ballerina. And... silently I judged, because there was so much stuff. I came home, and the next day I got rid of a big bag of clothing and put out my own "FREE" stuff on the sidewalk and reorganized my kitchen. LOL.

  • Friday I spent nearly 8 hours helping my acro base unpack and organize. Our goal was to get all his boxes open / broken down / gone, and we did it. So satisfying. We took a 2BR place from a giant pile of boxes to a place that looked like he lived there (and had had a messy week). We also got to see a couch left on the sidewalk disappear within an hour, and the same for a few other things that just didn't seem to have a place in the new apartment. He has different hobbies and different stuff than I do, but his attitude about objects is so much more like mine that it made for an interesting contrast with Tuesday.

  • You are wondering: well, miss minimalist, did you get any free stuff this Christmas season? Yeah, I did. The two pots (I got rid of one), a pint glass, and a pair of parallettes from R (good for doing pushups without having to warm up my wrists first).


Overall a very domestic week. If you count the intended-to-be-final walk-through for my new condo, I put serious time into four different places. Then I went kitchen-feral on Saturday and made both quatre quarts cake and sushi. Workouts did go okay as well, but with less to specifically report.

I groused and griped about the final outcome of the Google-vs-DOJ antitrust case, which of course Google lost. If the powerful can be found guilty but then nothing happens to them, what good are the courts? ) The judge could have hurt browsing a bit, and instead he hurt all of tech. Maybe all of the country.

I learned a good new insult from an otherwise so-so book. The insult is "fish drowner", and I am taking it to mean someone who fucks up the apparently unfuckable. The person who snatches defeat from the jaws of victory, the person who manages to drown a goddamn fish. The person who maybe had one job, and had the power in his hands to break up a known monopolist, and... simply didn't do it.
flexagon: (squirrel)
Overall, I had a really nice week of focusing on what I wanted to focus on, taking it easy in between energetic bouts of focus, and feeling good about all that. I went back to basics as was foretold by the prophecies my last post; cooked a bunch of chili on Monday and ate it all week for lunch, and did a lot of working out, and created a new tracker sheet for Things I Would Like to Be Maintaining. The day I did that is the first day I really did my desired two sets of pistol squats, so I got to write that down and be happy about it! I'm also flirting with my old straddle pancake program (owww, I can feel that) and trying to think how much cardio to do, and finding motions that really get at the jank in my shoulders. I've invented a sort of weighted chicken flapping action that I like a lot, for that last thing; I also have a backbend semiprivate buddy and a walkover semiprivate buddy, which is wonderful and makes me feel like I have companions for the journey.

I attended my town's condo board meeting, and watched them approve the conversion of my condo-to-be. Apparently one has to declare one's intention on that kind of conversion, and then there's a waiting period of a year before the conversion can happen?

Time was spent with the next generation of humans:
  • I hung out with the baby squirrel all day on Friday, and it was pretty nice. We made blue Jell-O with gummy sharks in it (more amusing than delicious, to my adult taste buds), and timed their laps on a bicycle in the small nearby cemetery while also getting to talk with [personal profile] apfelsingail, and hung out snuggling and playing Blue Prince for a lot of the afternoon. I didn't get hooked on Blue Prince last time I played, but this time I think maybe I'm more interested and might buy it for myself?

  • Today I took a long walk with Birdie, who's back from two weeks in Italy and more or less prepared for classes to start. We came back to my place and I dug up some baby pictures of her that she'd never seen, from when her parents brought her to visit my apartment in summer 2003, and she gave Caltrop a present of a little bird-shaped cat toy. We found a good spot for outdoor handstand photos over behind the high school, but didn't indulge... this time.


Time also was spent with my partners, of course: watching Wednesday with the bug, and going to the deCordova sculpture museum with the squirrel. The snuggle is real.

I've been listening to Someone You Can Build a Nest In, because it won the Nebula, and it's funnier than I expected but also extravagantly mid-2020s-progressive and full of plot holes; I have no idea how it won the Nebula. Or where the science fiction has gone, really, from the whole list of finalists. Even the Hugo finalists are packed with SF/F hybrids this year (the two SF entries are both by Adrian Tchaikovsky, who seems determined to move the "genre" industry toward SF as a solo effort and through sheer volume). Where's a science fiction fan to get her recommendations? Maybe the Arthur C Clarke award... though that's limited to books that are published first in the UK, maybe that's less restrictive than it sounds.
flexagon: (Default)
This last week's theme, if there was a theme, was "staying up until 1AM reading". Also, half-assing my workouts, which is something I'm explicitly working on fixing. (Half-assing my lunches is strongly related; I'm not quite eating enough early in the day.)

Fun thing: playing Öoo from end to end. You play as a cute caterpillar who looks like the game title, and it's just an inventive little puzzle-platformer that doesn't overstay its welcome.

Also fun: reading The Witch Elm with the bug as part of our two-person book club. I am starting to feel a little torn on Tana French; she writes wonderfully about deep friendships but also has a lot of idiotic male main characters, and wanting to wring their necks while I'm reading isn't always pleasant. She also writes smart women, and sure enough, my favorite book of hers so far has the smart woman as the narrator. Looking over her books, I think there's one more of those.

Confusing: spending a few hours pulling black swallow-wort (or sometimes just its pods), on the nicer days and while listening to Alien Clay on audiobook. It's a pleasant enough endeavor, and I'm up for an hour or so when it's nice out, but it's hard to know whether I'm doing any good.

Slow: the buying-a-condo project. I spent time on it last week, measuring windows -- they're all the same -- and ordering window blinds, privacy window film, coat hooks. Also applying for homeowners' insurance for the thing. And informing the closing agents that the way I'm taking title is Sole Ownership, thankyewverymuch... of the options they offered me, all of them were for joint title. Feeling the burn of being a single person in a world designed for couples, I guess, and I'm not even single!

I submitted my second crossword puzzle to the NYT, this one aiming at much earlier in the week. It's easier; the theme is simple but cute. Construction of the puzzles is a little bit dangerous for me, in that it can be very distracting and engaging. In terms of feedback loops, dynamism and discovery, the "fill" part is midway between a video game and programming... both of which are known to bring on flow states, and make people wonder where the last 2-3 hours went. So, while I think this is a fun creative thing and suits my needs in a lot of ways, I also should be careful with it. (With that said, I have a proof of concept complete on my third puzzle. My plan is to take a break from filling to re-score a bunch of words, and give the poor flooded NYT staff a chance to accept or reject the first two puzzles. They have a limit of 3 in the queue per constructor, anyway).

All of this is in the continued context of wanting to wind down the big projects and do a better job with smoothly running my days. In particular, I want to be exercising differently. Lots of things are going great, but some are not. It's been pretty easy, over the last few weeks, to start addressing the various bits of joint jank that had built up in my body -- and this is part of the "going great" -- but it's been less easy to regain some of the strength moves I used to maintain as an absolute minimum a few years ago. So I want to get more regular about those. So far the Turkish Get-Ups are on their way back, just the way I used to do them, and I am LOVING that; but chinups are much slower to return, and I probably will need to get back to 3x/week to get real gains there at this point. Pistol squats too. In general it's always been harder for me to gain than to maintain, and standard strength moves haven't been my #1 fitness priority for the last few years of handstand obsession, but I miss them. I know it might be harder to get them back now that I'm older, but I also let them go for a while, so who can tell? I want to pick them back up. And as mentioned earlier, that means I need to start eating better lunches. Back to basics, as a true priority, is likely to feel really good. So with that, I'm getting on the elliptical machine like I meant to an hour ago. :P
flexagon: (Default)
I let it go too long again and now my brain feels overstuffed.

I again was waiting for things to finish, and again they were slow. But: 1) I have a signed P&S on the new rental condo I last mentioned on June 26! That was a long road and I expected to get there on Monday. We do have it though -- just waiting for my deposit to clear -- and 2) I've also submitted my completed Thursday crossword puzzle to the NYT for possible publication. Those were both several-week processes, and I'm breathing a sign of relief over those. I did one more thing of Emotional Resonance and Finishing Up, which one could easily say I'd been putting off for years, by stepping down as admin of a Facebook group that used to be a big deal in my life.

I also had coffee with the seller of this condo; as I suspected he's going to barely break even on this house-flipping endeavor of his, though he says he learned a great deal. It's very clear that he and I will not fight, now that the hard bargaining is over. While I think we have differing politics, we are/were both managers who know how to do both budgeting and paperwork. He will continue to own Unit 1 for a while (he's renting it out for a year), there are a couple of offers on Unit 2 but I don't know whether the prospective buyers plan to occupy or rent out, and I of course will be the not-so-absentee landlady of Unit 3. What I actually kinda like about this: he has an incentive to sell Unit 2 to people who are sensible. And that is good for me, too.

There are other things that happened, including a fascinating afternoon in which a professional dog trainer visited Blue-Green Street and taught the adults how to teach the dogs about things. I've never spoken dog very well, and I was laser-focused on what this guy said about what dogs perceive when people do things. Forget "what is it like to be a bat"; there is enough of the alien in our very own households. So now I have learned what to do with Dog #1 barks anxiously at the window (yelling is really not enough and may even be received positively; there should be verbal reassurance but there there MUST be a PHYSICAL redirect, within seconds). I also know how to take the puppy outside, get her to pee (on leash, now, then allow off leash), how to reinforce her coming to her name, and how to ignore her when she's crated. I will never be a dog person, but I'm around the place enough that minimal competence is already a huge confidence booster. I feel less at the mercy of something I don't understand.

Speaking of that house, btw, all my research into HVAC has paid off. The tenants' central A/C is working again and also has been made more robust, thanks to my research, and all under extended warranty too! It is pleasing. All our tenants need new leases, so that's another thing. It is, in general, hard to keep up with maintenance of things... which is a lot of why I'm a minimalist in the first place, so one could definitely ask why I seem to be collecting houses. (I think there's a coherent answer, but not one I can articulate quickly today, and three is definitely going to be enough.)

I've been quite social this week, but most of it was 1:1. Now I'm invited to a larger game event I feel some trepidation about, but I'm sure it will be fine. Off to work out a bit and then go. I didn't get around to discussing the larger shift I hope I'm going through, from large-ish projects to less of that but more daily discipline; so that can wait, maybe for a post that's more about workouts.
flexagon: (Default)
1. PEAK RIPENESS
What’s something that is feeling purely delicious, ripe, messy, and juicy?


My entire extended family-ish situation. I am so happy with it, and there are lots of combinations of humans that can all be fun. The polycule is so great, Birdie being here is awesome and provides all kinds of ideas. Even the 'rents are being pretty okay right now.

2. COMING IN HOT
Your phone overheating. Being told to “simmer down.” How are outside forces communicating that you need to cool off?


I pulled a muscle or something while in contortion class on Thursday, and then I was trying to be super gentle today when I did the same thing again. Weird snapping feeling, no real pain, but some stiffness and soreness afterward. Whatever's happening in there, it's too sudden to be a good thing.

3. HOT HUES
Sun-bleached turquoise. Overripe watermelon. Green grass after a thunderstorm. Roadside wildflowers. Summer makes everything brighter: What color are you craving more of right now?


I don't know that I've ever craved a color!

4. PLUNGE
What’s the last thing you said yes to without hesitation?


Tiny Person's upcoming press handstand miniseries.

5. FEVER DREAM
Admit one thing you probably shouldn’t do, but lowkey want to?


Attend Somergloom alone and in a very altered state, with no preview or research. (What I actually am doing is making a playlist based on all the artists, to see if I like them)

6. BEACH SUB
Summer hunger hits differently. What’s your go-to simple, satisfying, hot weather meal?


Chickpea salad on a bagel, maybe.

7. MELTDOWN
When was the last time you totally lost it?


2021 when I suddenly could not, could not, go back to work as planned after a day or two off.

8. BURNING YOUR TONGUE
Texting your ex. A hot take. Unsolicited advice. When was the last time you took a sip too soon (metaphorically speaking)?


I heard that someone had basically lost their group in a coup at Zillian (and cried in the associated meeting), and reached out to that person before thinking to actually let them save face by asking how they were doing. The person was quite adamant that they'd chosen the new direction (though from what options, I can't say) and were simply emotional about the transition. OK OK, fine...
flexagon: (it-is-likely)
Well well well... Birdie, aka the ovum, aka the inevitable consequence of my long-ago egg donation, officially now lives a few blocks from me. And she'll likely live here for the next couple of years, while getting a master's in public health at a local college and also applying to med schools. While my mind continues to be blown by this, my body is now remembering several (three?) trips back and forth across the square as we a) investigated the apartment, and started setting up a few big things like the new mattress, b) brought over everything from my place except the cats, then opened all her boxes and assembled her new cat condo, and c) brought over the cats.

All of this was on Friday, after we fetched her (and the cats) from the airport on Thursday night and put her up here for the night. And it all went pretty smoothly! Yes, one of my grandcats did finally express a certain opinion on a blanket, an opinion which my washing machine is too small to rebut, but I can wash that in the squirrel's big machine and I think everything else is cleaned up already. I was glad to give the cats somewhere quiet to be while we did all the loud/scary parts of the unpacking, and Birdie was glad to have the move-in done so quickly. I know it really helps to have multiple people helping, especially when one is good at assembling things and the other loves to go medieval on cardboard boxes.

I promised her a lot of info about local professionals like dentists, etc, and part of me is very curious about what kind of relationship we're going to have over the next couple of years -- what does she want, what does she think she wants, what's actually going to work, etc? But mostly I'm grateful that whatever's happening here, she held off on doing it until I actually have time to spend with her. Pragmatic stuff first.

She turns 24 a week from tomorrow, and my birthday present to her is going to be a semiprivate contortion lesson with the coach at LCS, to help get her started with the local circus scene.

Lastly -- remember being young enough, and unfussy/unburdened enough, or just committed enough to minimalism, to move by shipping 8 or 10 boxes across the country plus loading up a suitcase? That was impressive. I'm admittedly a little envious, although my fully furnished place is a lot better for getting through a pandemic in.
flexagon: (Default)
Only two of this weeks' houseguests have come and gone, but I'll take a little moment out anyway. The top line is that I'm pretty well back on kilter. I thought my condo sale had hit another hiccup, but it turned out to be momentary, so all proceeds smoothly there.

Fun times:

  • Brunch with motorcycle-friend turned out to be super fun. He vroomed me out to the middle of nowhere, swearing that there was a good brunch place out there, and... I learned that every little airfield where rich people fly their Cessnas to is the location of a good cafe. Yes! It was an airfield! We chattered about life while watching the baby planes land and take off. I also got to wear a Klim mesh motorcycle jacket that's probably the most badass garment I have ever donned in my life.

  • My old acro partner, the Monk, came in on Monday night and we had tons of fun reconnecting and trying some of our old tricks. One of them came right back after just 3 tries even though neither have done it in the meantime and we aren't used to each other anymore. So fun. Also, so very sweaty.

  • Superman at the theater with a six-person group (polycule, visiting friend, and [personal profile] apfelsingail) last night was surprisingly feel-good. It's a "no animal left behind" movie -- and for reasons well beyond the squirrel rescue. There's a dog, there are turtles, there are monkeys. They also highlighted the immigrant/refugee aspect of Superman's backstory, which felt very relevant to the present day while also being original canon.



Interesting conversation on the crossword construction discord eventually led to my moving my old Harry Potter and Sandman books from the living room bookshelf to the back room; a small, literal re-platforming.

And... I'm wrapping up this month of my coaches being gone, and I want to get stronger again. I got a bit lazy and soft in July -- no, not a lot, but I miss strength work. Just getting back to doing banded chinups most days in my office has been nice, and doesn't really take any time, but I've realized I'd like to do a lot more.
flexagon: (Default)
Sometimes I hate posting about things when I'm in the middle of them -- not wanting to waste people's time writing up a moment that won't last, or add more importance to it with words. And other times, I hate this tendency of mine because other small things get lost in my silence. With that:

  • The big thing I've been quiet about is a new rental condo that I'm (maybe) buying. It's less than 10 minute walk from my house and ticks all my important boxes. There is diciness to the situation since I'll be the first buyer of a 3-unit house that someone else is flipping, but there's also security in a full renovation (with 1-year builder's warranty!) and in, you know, me already knowing how to deal with condos and tenants. The seller and I aren't on any of the same pages AFAICT, and yesterday I thought I was going to walk away from the deal and wait for the next thing to pop up -- but the moment they understood I wanted my deposit back, they caved and gave me what I wanted. The housing market is softening and we can assume I paid a little high for the unit, but it's just what I wanted in terms of being flexibly rentable (good for roommates, not just for a couple or single person), great location, low maintenance, walking distance. It's also by far the smallest unit in the building, so condo fees will be low, heh heh. I just hope the seller succeeds in selling those other units at SOME price because I don't wanna be running a house with him for very long.

  • I've been taking fanatical care of my tiny plants since the Great Encrispening of late June, and on July 7 I noted the very first new green leaves on one of them. Well, as of this week they are all showing signs of regrowth, even the one I really thought might be dead and had begun to sing encouraging little songs to. My dreams of them spreading out and being groundcover are deferred, but at least I didn't kill them?

  • Perfectly on topic for caring too much about small living things: the other thing is that I got really sad and knocked off my center over the weekend by a dead baby bird. Said bird was killed right outside a window I was just inside of, by my boyfriend's puppy who is only partially trained, and I heard it happen -- although a lot of what I really heard was mother bird freaking out in the dog's face -- and then, just to make matters worse, nobody else seemed upset about it. So that was a hard dose of depression and alienation and (resultant) sleeplessness. It got better the next day when I finally affirmed that there hadn't been a nest there, and this unfortunate fledgling being there in the lawn was a surprise and an unhappy accident for all. So, no human negligence. I still thought a lot of thoughts about how some get only the tiniest little scrap of life while others get... what I've gotten so far. Sigh... somehow it's never super smooth when boyfriends get puppies.

  • No wait, let's stay on topic! I heard that there's controversy about Superman saving a squirrel in the latest movie. Yeah well, learning about that scene is going to make me go see it, and so there. Superman can't save every lower creature but he'll save the ones he sees and can reasonably help. I like this Reddit comment: Gunn’s interpretation made me believe that this Clark would do everything in his power, as a normal civilian, to help all life. Like he’d be in all sorts of humanitarian aid programs and voluntary work just cause he loves life that much. Neat detail, never thought about the character that way. And really, shouldn't humans and squirrels be equally negligible (or cute) to a superior Krypton being?



So, my actual week was literally spent getting myself re-centered after spiraling on Sunday. Most of my coping mechanisms involve knocking as many things off my to-do list as I can, which may explain a few things. However, some things:

  • Ice cream party at Gracie's in which we got educated about ice cream and then the host (birthday boy) got to have a custom flavor made in their ice cream machine! That was fun and I really learned things, like that "overrun" is the amount of air incorporated into ice cream during freezing. Also, ube ice cream is really good (and purple) -- I had just a bite, of course, because dairy.

  • Whole lot of work on organizing a volunteer weeding effort around my part of town. I volunteered to organize in order to figure out my burnout level with respect to organization, and so far I'm doing okay with it but it's a pain. Probably going to disappoint a few people whose weeds don't get pulled.

  • Got my phone kitted out with a new battery and a new screen.

  • Got stuck in Harvard Square for silly reasons, ended up speed-reading two books of Frieren manga that go out past the current end of the anime. It's good, but I concur that the anime is better.



I doubt that's really all, but my friend is showing up in 20 minutes to pick me up on a motorcycle and take me to brunch somewhere. Adventure brunch!! I should probably not still be in my glasses and underwear. Thus, I am off to make myself decent.
flexagon: (racing-turtle)
...sounds like something you'd rather not get stabbed with, doesn't it? Though at least the wound would be freshly scented. At any rate, the bug and I flew and drove to get to the amusement park, rode roller coasters for two entire days, and came back. I had various new experiences:

  • First time at Cedar Point, and actually my first time in Ohio. We stayed in Hotel Breakers, which is right on the island about 5 minutes' walk from the amusement park entrance gate.

  • First time going to a hibachi grill place! Loud but fun, with the chefs squirting stuff into people's mouths and having fun making fire. We had shrimp and salmon that came out really good.

  • First time on a tilt roller coaster, Siren's Curse, which opened just three-ish weeks ago and may have been my favorite. So smooth and sinuous, with great music and gleaming new everything.

  • First time going up over 400 feet on a roller coaster, Top Thrill 2, built last year and currently the tallest roller coaster in the world. My extremely honest notes on that one say: Throat hurts from screaming “oh fuck yes”, or maybe some other scream.


There was a bit of physical misery from heat and sun, and iterating on the best thing to wear. I'm pretty sure my dream outfit would consist of capri-length cargo leggings with zip pockets, and a quick-dry sun protective T-shirt with flutter sleeves (for lots of UPF on the shoulders, but ventilation for armpits). But I also did pretty well on the second day with long athletic shorts with no pockets, plus a small waist bag. Minor sunburn, despite running myself out of both the kinds of sunblock I bought. Sore feet each day.

But we rode roller coasters, which I love! We had twelve on our list, and managed to knock off nine of them the first day despite a) wasting most of our early-entry time and b) the park closing down the rides two hours early for rain. The next day we hopped right on the early entry, and used it to get onto the remaining coaster that had always had a huge line (Millenium Force). Listening to others in the line around us, we learned it was only running one of its three trains -- the yellow one, while blue sat on a side line and red lay in pieces somewhere under maintenance. I daydreamed then about having deep deep knowledge of the place, and all the coasters and their cars and the various modes of operation; knowing what a good day and a bad day look like for the park maintainers. And then we rode the yellow train.

That particular ride had a really good drop, and here's the funny part about coasters; the way the train is plummeting toward the ground, yeah, but as that happens there's also a lightness and floating that happens between the rider and the train. Once I'm feeling familiar with the overall sensation of coasters I actually like to relax during the drops and feel the float, before bracing myself for the curve at the bottom. Some coasters give a lot of this same float at the top of hills, where negative G is scary as hell to me but zero G feels cozy and floaty and loving. Some corkscrew rolls / heartline rolls do this too (and loops hardly ever do it, though I also love a good loop). And this is why I only hold on tight for the first big drop or two of the day -- after that, it just wastes a good floating opportunity.

Did I mention that coasters just make me HAPPY? In nearly all the photos from rides I look the same -- hunched forward, sunglasses in place, mouth open in a big smile. After a while we started calling it my "avid turtle" thing. It's a little dorky, and also pretty much the happiest I ever get to see myself... so we bought two of the pictures, and I have brought out my old "racing turtle" icon for this post too.

What else? We had good teamwork, staying in sync for food and bathroom breaks, taking time out when the bug had a back spasm early on the 2nd morning. I did take one ride without him -- Steel Vengeance, which sounds mean, but the line was short and it let me report on how rough the ride was so that he could decide about it. But aside from that hour or so, we were really well matched as park goers. We had food deals built into our tickets and, thus, ate fairly horribly for a couple of days. I even ate a bag of Cheetos, and was reminded how hyper-palatable junk food really can be (must try to forget again... but oh, that crunch). Even so, there were salads and fruit cups, and I don't know about the bug but I don't seem to have gained weight. I guess 13 hours of being outdoors and mostly on one's feet will burn some energy.

I did lots of people watching. It's not often I see so many people of all ages in small groups, being fairly unguarded. So I saw a whole lot of play-fighting among the young males of the species, and a lot of teenage girls getting used to having breasts to display. White girls in Lululemon running shorts or skorts, black girls in yoga pants and assertively false eyelashes. Kids wearing band/album T-shirts from way before they were born. Different accents. Lots of sports teams on T-shirts, but also some serious roller coaster afficionado gear (If it's not Intamin, I don't care). The dad with missing teeth saying to his teenage son, not too unkindly, that you can't be scared forever, it's just a roller coaster. Middle-aged folks like us, quieter, being able to see the young'uns and knowing we're essentially invisible to them. Ah, and we also watched birds -- the pretty ones turned out to be grackles.

It's good to be home with the cats again, typing this on my new monitor. We had minor delays in getting home, but nothing that still matters today. I'm grateful that all the driving of the rental car went smoothly, and that we were able to sync the entire trip with my squirrel's trip to the island he visits every year.
flexagon: (like smiley)
A good week. Not much time to write it up but at circus there was h2h progress, handstand jump progress and my first spotted back walkover in several years. And when not at circus, I've poured many hours into working on constructing my crossword puzzle with my collaborator-mentor. Some into finishing up the last drawing lesson from the class I was given at Christmas. Some into making my July budget before the month started, and ordering a new external monitor (which I was always planning to do).

I was social and chill also; lunch/coffee with a couple of old co-workers, relaxing in [personal profile] motyl's pool. Went on a walk with my squirrel and the new camera, and learned a few more of its features. Found a good little park in which to go and take handstand photos, one of these weekdays when the kiddos aren't around.

I said I'd help organize some invasive weed pulling, but then I got too caught up in the crossword to do any of that today.

Felt a bit of FOMO, as it feels like everyone has done shrooms now (several of my friends for the first time this week) and I still haven't. However, I am about to go and ride roller coasters for a couple of days in Cedar Point. That should alter my consciousness pretty well.
flexagon: (stan)
Some interesting (to me) progress on understanding my longstanding spiderweb phobia; not surprisingly, it isn't exactly and only spiderwebs. Back when I went to Norwood's birthday party, the subject came up of random things that gave us heebie-jeebies, and I mentioned spiderwebs as usual. His other ex asked me "Is it a texture thing?" which nobody had ever asked me before. I said maybe, or maybe in part, because the texture of having a web on you is pretty gross. Even though I also remembered trying one time to explain that a strand of web, once clinging to me, isn't exactly doing the web thing anymore... so I said that beyond texture there's also something about an invisible unknown structure in the air, holding stuff up, but whose extent is not known. I'm not particularly scared of cobwebs that are covered in dust or in dew/fog/moisture, or not in the same way -- though I'm still not about to go putting my hand in them, maybe that's the texture part.

So then more thinking. Looking at a dust-covered cobweb in the Esh bathroom, thinking "I could touch that and it would be gross, but I'm not getting much of a fear response." (Maybe I should touch it tomorrow).

Then in someone's backyard, there was some netting over an enclosure, and it looked invisible in some places because of the shade and the angle of the light; I could see leaves caught in the netting, and looking at that made me uncomfortable in a recognizable and related way. As if the leaves, hovering there obviously in a plane and supported by something, were stuck in a giant spiderweb. Weirdly, having become aware of it, I even got a ghost of the same feeling with bubbles in a coffee pod later (there were little bubbles on the surface of a big bubble -- annoyed, I made myself poke it with my finger to pop the bubbles).

Unless I'm surprised by something, or there's a web I have to deal with, this is all more a matter of discomfort than real fear.

I'm not the only one. There's some recent-ish discussion on Reddit lately, sometimes calling it "araneophobia", sometimes talking about things stuck on webs and "floating in the air" as a trigger (I identify with that). There's an article on Medium too, discussing it as a sensory "fear of touching" thing. For me, I think it's useful to realize that the sensory thing exists but is largely separate from the fear thing. And, I guess, nice to realize that I can still learn more about myself at this point in life.
flexagon: (Default)
Overall: heat wave, with the bug briefly testing positive for covid but me not getting it, followed by a pretty nice weekend. It felt like a lot of time went to chores and things while the bug was sick, but a lot of good stuff and progress happened regardless:


  • Last week's heat wave did a number on my plants, which crisped up and lost a lot of leaves. There's another one coming, though not as bad as last week's, and I guess I'll water them more often this time but I'm starting to doubt they'll survive the summer. It's only June, ffs. I finished the stump and planted a new plant in there, though, and that's pretty cute.

  • Some cooking beyond just meal kits: apricot quatre quarts pound cake which came out really, really good. Might make again. Might even buy the proper pan! Then I also made beef bourguignon for a friend whose cat is dying, because it's her favorite... and I also had no idea how long it was going to take. Ahahahahaha, "what's her favorite recipe?" Famous last words. She was glad to have it though.

  • The new session has started at circus school! I've got my Friday nights back, but am doing a walkover miniseries with the tumbling coach on Thursdays and the first lesson was fun. I just need a reason to keep backbending so that I don't lose it.

  • Medical stuff: dermatologist on Tuesday (I talked them into slicing off a mole I disliked), and an ultrasound on Friday. The ultrasound was for a lymph node in my groin that had mytseriously remained swollen for 3 months in the absence of evident infection or sickness, which they really aren't supposed to do... welp, the ultrasound showed a dumb little subcutaneous skin cyst right over my normal, healthy lymph node. The little thing had everyone fooled, including my RN. So learning that it's essentially nothing is great news. I also had an eyelid-puffing thing that started on Thursday, got worse through Friday night and is now getting better. Mysteries.

  • Finished Chants of Senaar with the bug on Tuesday, and Frieren Season 1 with the squirrel on Wednesday.

  • Went kayaking on the Mystic River with [personal profile] apfelsingail and my squirrel! Super fun. We had temperate weather, clouds and a calm river.

  • Not sure what to say about my progress creating a crossword, but my collaborator for the 2nd time thinks we have a gimmick & theme combo worth digging in on, and we are Doing Spreadsheets in pursuit of same. I also, separately, downloaded and played around with Ingrid, the latest crossword construction software, which has been fun. Digging through wordlists gets me into some really random corners of language -- like, did you ever notice that BOVINE TUBERCULOSIS contains both VINE and TUBER? No! I bet you hadn't!



OK, and here's one more thing that's weirder. I passed a message to Lioness, who hasn't really responded respectfully to me in five years, and got a perfectly reasonable response back! I am astounded. Passing the message through a mutual friend we both trust is apparently what made the difference. I think that what I care about here is that a) she responded, instead of insisting I don't exist I'm not part of her life, and b) now I know for sure that she knows that Lion is trying to re-start some level of friendship with me. The actual content of her message was the usual "I don't care" bullshit, but that doesn't matter to me as much as a) and b) do, because I already know she's avoidant. I wanted the meta-message, and to be a little less scared. So here's to long shots and making strange requests of distant connections, I guess.
flexagon: (squirrel)
Happenings:


  • The bug is back from Oregon; his mom remains in the hospital, or more accurately is back in the hospital, with pneumonia and two small strokes (?) having followed her hip surgery. Prognosis is cautiously optimistic but it may take her a while to get home again. In the meantime, the bug seems to have picked up something on his return travels. We are quiet today.

  • I have done rather a lot of circus since last time. Handstands, a semi-private contortion lesson with another Zillian person who is apparently twenty years younger than me, acro practice, more acro practice.

  • Finished a drawing lesson. I don't like coffee cups anymore; they are annoying to draw. Screw you, coffee cups. Mushrooms were much better.

  • Spent a fair bit of Saturday buying, transporting and installing air conditioner units for tenants. My co-landlords were all having Moments, and it really fit in pretty well around Porchfest, anyway, for me to take care of most of it. Then yes, also the bug played Porchfest, in the backyard of the same house because everything happens at Blue-Green Street now, and I sat between friends and felt relaxed and happy.

  • Did I mention Moments? Yeah, Perse and her other boyfriend have broken up, creating a Disturbance in the Polycular Force. (Not very long ago the four of us usually ate Tuesday dinner together, so this does affect me... it kind of sounds far away from me but it really isn't.) Date nights are changing around, and my squirrel-family is losing their nice convenient poly-symmetry. This is gonna be a trip... in the meantime, my Sunday night date moved to Sunday morning and damn, Henrietta's Table is really delicious.

  • I played with Cursor and Sonnet on Sunday morning, which means vibe coding, and it was very quick and very infuriating. I'm almost certainly going to do more of it, as my new crossword puzzle hobby drags me further into futzing with word lists.



On the macro level, there's a vicious heat wave here (I'm worried about the squirrels) and uh, the US has attacked Iran nuclear facilities. I'm reading that Iran has (or had?) an underground enrichment facility that only the US had the right plane and the right bomb to knock out, and I get why the world might be better off without an Iranian nuclear state... and this is still queasy-making.

I'm enchanted, at the moment, by thoughts of conscious flexibility and looseness. Twice in the last week I've learned very physically that there can be more (and easier!) motion of one part of the body when there's part that's held firm and part that is loose and able to move freely. And I'm messing around with this as a metaphor, as my schedule loosens and life flows along. This has been my problem with handstands, and handstand jumps, all along -- I actually have to be disconnected through a certain part of my body in order to let my hips rise. Tiny Coach got me to jump onto a yoga block taller than I ever have before by having me hold my arms firm, relax the rest, and jump repeatedly (boing, boing, boing) while allowing my hips to actually move with the momentum of the jump..... after we did that, I went and did hand-to-hands with my base and we had more success, both on Friday and on Sunday, with that too. I'm talking like several jumps to balance in a row on both days. We still seem to need a big pile of safety mats in front of us but they're not actually doing anything, they're just there. So yeah, isolations. Where to hold firm, and where to be chill and adaptable while taking in momentum from the world or from others, currently is a fascinating lens on the puzzle of how to plan a life.
flexagon: (Default)
I'm late with this post because of a date night switcheroo followed by being busy. And I can't believe how much has happened. Life seems to move faster now in some ways, not that time is passing faster but that a larger percentage of the hours I spend in a day are actually advancing the plot. So anyway, this covers ten days.


  • I did a pact, or "tiny experiment", a la the book Tiny Experiments. In particular I had a long email thread filled with lots of goodbye emails from people at Zillian, many of which (but not all of which) warranted a personalized reply, and it was so hard to address that I'd left it alone for a few weeks. A week ago Weds after spending 2-3 hours on email and still not touching it, I decided to start writing five emails to co-workers every day for a week. Which I did! Yes, including on my birthday. I didn't really know how many I would choose to write, but this last Wednesday, suddenly, only two remained. Now some people have written back to my replies, but, anyway, good pact.

  • The bug and I attended a full moon ritual & singing circle over at Blue-Green Street, and that was new for me.

  • I went out to the No Kings protests on Saturday, and saw some really excellent signs (including the only boots worth licking are the ones worn by goth girls). I enjoyed the march, then went on to the rest of Norwood's 50th birthday party, which indeed I was in that town for; ended up spending a lot of the party with another of his exes, who I was wildly incompatible with in 2015. A funny moment in time, this one, where we found ourselves both being exes from the same era. I hugged her goodbye and she said "you're still a fucking weirdo", which is 100% true.

  • My crossword puzzle collaborator and I got excited about a theme idea and started working on it in earnest, with a spreadsheet for possible theme entries etc, but then it became clear that it was too similar to another just-published puzzle and we decided to set that theme down. Back to the drawing board. Bit of a let-down, but I really appreciate how much time he's saving me by nixing ideas before I spend tons of time gridding them out... we'll get somewhere eventually.

  • I played a lot of Chants of Senaar, carved away on my tree stump, and finished reading Black River Orchard which is the most fun horror book I've read in a long time.

  • Early on Monday the bug left for Oregon, in order to help his mother in the aftermath of a hip surgery (which has now happened and gone well). I've been holding down the fort since then, which has meant a ton of cleaning. I had to take out the garbage/recycling/compost as well as tidy up everything for the cleaners. However, it was especially wonderful to have the squirrel over at my place on a Tuesday for once, and now the house is very clean.

  • Israel attacked Iran, holy shit. Also vice versa. I had one of my Israeli friends over on Monday for commiseration and hangouts.

  • Around and through this, handstand lessons have continued. Better focus means better results; Spring was happy with my press off a single folded-up panel mat on Tuesday. I wish I were doing more consistent, disciplined practicing on my own, but... that sort of thing is where the burnout lies, I guess. July will offer me more incentive to work on my own, when both my coaches are out for a while.



Today's been eventful. I spent most of the day in Salem poking around at all the little witchy shops, with friends; then came back and served dinner to five former co-workers (they're all better friends with each other than with me; I just volunteered to host their group, in exchange for my getting to peep their vibe). Right when that was finishing up, I got a text that Birdie, my bio-kid, has signed a lease for an apartment a ten-minute walk from me! Just across the square. OMG!! That's going to be crazy, just utterly bonkers, having her be local for a while.

And now I am really freaking tired. Time to fall over.

Happy

Jun. 7th, 2025 09:57 am
flexagon: (like smiley)
Not to put too fine a point on it but uh... I'm really happy right now. There's burnout in some places within me, but lots of little tendrils growing, and lots of satisfying progress being made in the intermediate zones that aren't new and also aren't overtaxed.

I didn't really tell you about trying to hollow out a tree stump to make a planter; that's been a slow process but I've learned that I really enjoy chiseling. (The rubber mallet is easy on my joints, I have a lovely long bath of a slow-burn horror book that's strangely cozy to listen to, and it hits that sweet spot of "moderately active outdoor time in the shade"). Anyway, I finished a layer of chiseling yesterday, and there was a little spider on a little spiderweb in there. I think that a few years ago I would have grabbed a broom. "Idiot" I said to it yesterday, and started chiseling as far away from it as I could. It crawled around, hid for a while and finally came to its tiny little senses and left the stump! Then I swept its remaining web away with the chisel and finished up, and was happy with all that. Very strange.

Handstand lessons are a whole new experience with a) better focus and b) Tiny Coach. I tend to come back from her lessons a little starry-eyed and saying things like "omg, I felt something in my chest that I've never felt before", leading the bug to wonder whether I've been on a date or at a lesson (snerk). But really though. I really did feel something like a rubber band across my sternum, and I felt a part of my right hamstring relax and lengthen in a way that was really startling. I just let her mess with me, the way a vet does things to a cat, and then later I take notes. Amusingly, and related to the above, we did have a moment where she suggested I visualize a spiderweb wrapping around my ribcage and I was like "this is a great moment to tell you about my phobia, let's do something different." LOL. So all of this is good and it's carrying over into my Spring lessons too. I hope it carries into my hand-to-hands where I'm still working through some mental block, but time will probably help there too.

(Speaking of Spring, he's going to have surgery in a couple of weeks and be out for a while, plus Tiny Coach won't be teaching contortion handstands again next session, so my LCS schedule should ease up soon; maybe just in time for my self-discipline to pick up a little and me to train on my own more?)

Disconnected nice things -- social time out on Tuesday that ended abruptly and left me wandering, alone and buzzed, in Boston in the warm late evening. More drawing exercises, mostly done during video calls with two different friends. And several things went well for the squirrel family this week, big things that advance the plot. And the bug and I made reservations to go ride roller coasters at Cedar Point for two days later in the summer! On Thursday night I was jazzed enough about all these things to have trouble sleeping, which I found pretty funny even while it was happening and I wanted to be asleep.

I fumbled my way toward town/community involvement a bit more, attending a neighborhood council meeting and having lunch with a guy who's very connected to the various do-good movements around town. It sounds like my organizational / group leadership skills are very much in need for pretty much everything I might want to be involved in, but... that's where the burnout still lives, so maybe do-gooding can wait. I still have enough of my own stuff to do.

One final amusement: I had my first garden-related anxiety dream last night. All my plants were dying! In real life, the ginger did have a leaf or two go dry from this week's heat wave. It's funny how any pursuit or any level of caretaking creates a whole new genre of "X going wrong" dreams.

I'll be posting separately about the weekend, but in the meantime here we are.
flexagon: (Default)
The week's update is happening a day late because... I took a while at the hardware store yesterday, walked home super slowly, and then the bug and I spent all evening playing Chants of Senaar together, with the impulsive young cat alternating slowly between laps. And that is just the kind (and level) of debauchery I can get behind, in this current season of my life.

So, the week.


  • I read my first real manga that needed to be read from back to front: Uzumaki. Very fun (the big bad is... a spiral?) and good body horror. It took me an embarrassingly long time to see "maki" (as in sushi) hidden inside of "uzumaki" (spiral).

  • Too many of my friends lost jobs; one quit to escape a shitshow, two more went out together when a local company decided their software didn't need no stinking frontend, and a fourth just got the axe from one half of a husband-and-wife team after the other half had hired her. I feel some kind of survivor's guilt, even though I don't have a tech job anymore either and I'm glad I'm not trying to get one. The whole sector seems to be on fire.

  • Random good news #1: the bug's kidney stone is out and gone!

  • Random good news #2: the squirrel has a new puppy! I took the bug to visit her. She seems to have the makings of a sweet doggo, but of course a new puppy is still mayhem; the squirrel family is short on sleep.

  • Flora: of the five types of plant I put in last week, one of them curled up and died without comment. The others are alive. And the two that I chose most carefully, based on shade requirements, actually seem to be firm and perky after a week in the ground. Nothing exciting like new leaves growing, but they seem at least curious to see what's happening here.

  • Crossword nerdery:I've been getting more and more into the NYT crosswords. Last Thursday the puzzle constructor put out a call for collaborators, so I emailed (with some nervousness), and he wrote back to me and now we're brainstorming theme ideas together.

  • I went on two lovely long walks with people, the better one being with [personal profile] apfelsingail to have the best breakfast sandwich of my 2025 along with a tour of the USS Constitution. If any of y'all are anywhere close to Lechmere / Galleria area, go here and try the breakfast pita and thank me later. I've been walking a lot; enough to make my feet feel the burn most days.



The squirrel says I haven't really found the balance between Doing All the Things and Doing None of the Things, and that seems both fair and accurate. I've made some decidedly odd choices, like spending a few hours this week hollowing out a tree stump to make a planter; I think I'm only sticking with it because it's so nice to sit outside listening to a good audiobook and doing something manual. And sometimes I do too much and then crash out early. But... so what, exactly?
flexagon: (Default)
A friend was discussing some bullshit he's dealing with at work (in those terms), and I realized my life is quite low-bullshit at the moment. I guess I expected this, but it's gratifying. The most likely source of bullshit in my life is now probably... me. Me who is definitely going to use every moment of tomorrow in the best possible way, mmhmmm. Me whose hips are definitely going to go forward over my hands, next time I do a straddle jump. Me.

So anyway, the week:

  • Flora: Went with [personal profile] motyl in the pouring rain to buy native plants on Thursday. The rain persisted and the plants sat by the side of my house getting soaked for a while, but now they are all in the ground, and labeled too! I bought a wide, shallow pot at Pemberton to set on the pipe/drain I found under the dirt, so that we can cover it while not totally losing it again, and one more random (non-native) plant to go in that -- at the plant store I found myself surprised that living things can be so cheap, and then I realized that living things are almost the only self-assembling products out there. So maybe the low prices do make sense.

  • Fauna: speaking of life in my yard, I had a bit of a Boys Don't Cry moment while feeding my favorite squirrel Wispy. Wispy was eating a nut, sat up while directly facing me, and... Wispy, I don't think you're a girl after all. At least, no squirrel doctor would have said so at your birth. So I've been engaged since then in a slightly creepy quest for firm photographic evidence, but in the meantime I think Wispy is never going to give birth to a litter of adorable black squirrels (sniffle). I will have to wish him well in the mating games if I am to see such babies.

  • Finished reading, and writing reviews for, The Poppy War and Abundance and My Year of Rest and Relaxation. Two of those were audiobooks! Gardening and house projects both help a lot with getting the hours in. As for Abundance: now I am mildly inspired about infrastructure, know more about what "supply-side" economic discussion is about. I also learned that Ronald Reagan shut down a bunch of solar energy programs that had been started in the 1970s (the 70s, ffs!), and we'd probably be way further along now if that hadn't happened. Sigh.

  • House projects included painting over some chips in the bedroom walls, priming/painting over some knots in the stairwell along with cleaning the stairs and baseboards, taking off even more nasty plastic/tape/adhesive from windows, and installing a new bathroom fan with a lot of care for extra noise & rattles. Now it's quieter and doesn't let weird flakes of gunk fall through from the attic.

  • One drawing lesson on drawing organic forms. I was supposed to find something mostly based on cylinders, spheres etc but imperfect, and settled on mushrooms, which turn out to be quite fun to draw.



A private lesson with Tiny Coach on Thursday and a group one on Friday just kept blowing my mind.
  • I didn't know that one can (and maybe should) do the standard upper-back stretch on the wall with... relaxed traps, just leading from the chest. It's hard to be aware enough to get this right, but it feels great when it works.
  • And I didn't know that one can hypothetically get a good backbendy stretch sitting in a straddle, with pelvis tilted anterior and arms overhead (holding a weight). My body barely goes there, it's so confused, and its confusion is interesting to me because I have all the pieces.

  • She did a very painful massage thing to my right leg that made a knot deflate almost instantly. After she did it I was able to briefly touch my right elbow to toe for the first time in years, though with a calf twinge.



Overall, I've been having a lovely time of it. My human squirrel has been gone for a long weekend away, but I've been happy and engaged around my home. The bug has a birthday tomorrow and I'm looking forward to celebrating with him, plus there'll be acro practice and a chance to do more house things. But if I want to get there it's time to stop writing, wash the dishes (with the next audiobook) and settle down (with the next paper book).

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