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It is suddenly Autumnal! The cats are snuggling, we have a big nor'easter happening, and there's a squirrel in the squirrel nesting box (probably hiding from the rain, rather than fully moving in). The times of looking out for "cool days" in the 70s are over, the times of looking out for "warm days" that crack 70 have begun.

The nationwide shortage of estrogen is finally hitting me; I should be on a new patch right now but CVS has taken 10 days so far to fill my prescription, rather than their usual one day. I am, to twist an old Zillian in-joke, uncomfortably unexcited by this, though nothing awful has happened yet.

On Tuesday I got triple-vaxxed (covid, flu and MMR) after which I was pretty damn sleepy. Early bedtime for a couple of nights turned into a long 4AM reading session after I'd gotten enough sleep, after which I reverted to form.

I finished my programming project, unsuccessfully -- I didn't find crossword entries of the type I was looking for -- but I did find pieces I can use in a different puzzle, and I seem to have nerd-sniped someone else, someone with far more sophisticated software, into doing what I had tried to. I also finished up a different grid, working with a goddamn legend who I still can't believe is willing to talk to me at all. As I start to do more random helping of others on the relevant Discord server, I have to wonder... am I starting to get good? Certainly I'm way more confident using the software. That new grid was built quickly by using two custom wordlists, one and then the other, and I'm the one who figured out how to quickly create the second.

Handstands feel different all the time now. Yesterday I used the trampoline to bounce up to canes again, and managed my goal-for-today of hold, come down and go back up to a second balance with just one rebound. And earlier in the week I finally experienced just letting my shoulders open, without a ton of effort or a giant mental argument, while I jumped over them. It felt easy and very strange. I also got my transverse abdominis sore; coincidence? Likely not?

I made some really awful uh, barley with beef in it. Ewwww. Turns out that does not taste like a soup, or even like good barley. I rescued it with the addition of an onion and some garlic fried up in bacon grease -- oh, and carrots, and throwing in some bacon bits too. And it became soup! Lesson learned.

Didn't see the squirrel-boyfriend much -- too much travel for a board meeting. We got a few snuggles last night. I managed to paint its toes a proper squirrely gold before it definitively fell asleep, and I'm pretty sure that was sympathy I saw in Perse's eyes as I headed for the bus. But things still feel good, and I understand about Big Jobs, even if mine was never quite that big.

The cottage is close to finishing up; should be done in October. I picked out bathroom stall pieces and tiles, etc, this week. And, just in case the cottage story wasn't tangled enough yet, it looks like we may be able to put Birdie in there for a couple of months as her semester winds up (!). Rent free because an ADU in that town isn't allowed to have short-term renters. It will be pretty funny if we house my egg before we house the squirrel mama, but also useful, because I would like someone chill to test-drive the renovations & raise any problems before we move in a fussy 76-year-old.

I'm still interested in doing some "zoomed-out" posts where I hold forth a little more on some topic. What would people be interested in hearing about? Ageing, crosswords, books/reading, retirement-from-tech-so-far, patchwork/found family, houses, circus?

The whole world is details. Last Monday I did a serious push to get through all my starred emails (and monthly finance review), and every day since then I've tried to knock out a couple of super annoying or delayed tasks. I definitely peaked in this realm by filling out the paperwork necessary to work the polls in my city and physically taking them to City Hall, but damn it I almost called the IRS today too. Almost. It's gonna happen.

Fixed a leak for my Porter Square tenants, and one of them fed me a cinnamon roll. So nice. I was hopeful about not getting charged for that, but they did charge me, and that's reasonable since I may have in fact broken a pipe.

One of Birdie's dads came to visit, and I had dinner with him twice -- once with the bug and once with Birdie. Managed to give him back some body wash he left with me on his last visit, which amused me. He doesn't realize that his visits stress Birdie out... sigh. They do though, and her cat got sick at the same time, and she's losing her roommate soon, so overall she's got some decisions to make.

Bug and I spent several hours down in the basement, clearing off and removing an old 4'x4' shelving unit that always was a lousy shape for storage. We've replaced it with two 2'x4' wire racks, and our little storage room feels bigger now! There was a lot of spiderweb removal (and, despite our best efforts, I still put my hand in a small one and yelped).

We also celebrated our anniversary with a bounce juggling workshop -- I successfully learned a 3-ball bounce cascade -- and a really nice dinner at Moëca. My second time there and it was just as good as the first time, maybe better.

I've continued to feel more solidity and steadiness in my handstands. This is primarily because of Tiny Person, and what Tiny Person teaches me is to do less, move less. Feel what it's like to NOT move, which is far more of a distinct feeling for me than slight movement is. Oh, and also strange things: like opening the shoulder by hinging from around the base of the shoulder blade, not by strain at the gleno-humeral joint. Sometimes it all seems to be coming together. I even, last week with Pokemon, managed to feel like a tuck-up and a straddle-up were the same basic going-up motion -- and I've sure been waiting to feel that for fifteen years.

Social: foreshortened dates with the squirrel, all on unusual days, because CEO jobs aren't easy and he keeps having to travel. Lunch with ex-Zillianaires.

More India planning, more Spain planning. It begins to seem like the squirrel mama will be moving into the cottage earlier than we thought -- maybe February! -- which actually lowers the time pressure on the renovation, since we won't be trying to slip a 6-month lease in between the reno and her move-in. I should still check in with the contractor about schedule, though. Tomorrow.

It's getting dark earlier, and it's getting colder. Fall is here. I've started doing some programming toward a crossword I've had in my head for a long time, and the progress is slow/incremental but enjoyable.

I'm interested in doing more "zoomed-out" posts, but in the meantime here's another week:

Paperwork victory for the India trip, getting my "tourist visa" granted. I had to give them my religion (very much "OTHER", out of the list they offered) along with every country I'd travelled to in the last ten years... yipes.

Painting radiator covers for our tenants, whose baby is starting to toddle around on his own. I started listening to The Deluge, a 40-hour audiobook about climate change, and it was peaceful; did three coats on three days; and then we installed the covers on Saturday.

The NYT games department re-opened for crossword submissions, and I dumped four new collabs (with four different people) into the queue. I'm proud of them; they include my first-ever Sunday. Now I'm working on my first-ever rebus puzzle, with a guy who's kind of a legendary constructor, and it's quite an education.

Saw a circus show with a videogame focus. The cutest act was an aerial one with two Yarnies joined together a la Unraveled Two.

Went ziplining on Sunday with Birdie, ironically on my wedding anniversary with heisenbug -- that, itself, is getting celebrated next weekend because nice restaurants aren't open on Sundays. Some of our fellow zipliners asked if we were sisters and we laughed and I said "no, mother and daughter". So on the way back we had a brief conversation about generally using the words "mother" and "daughter" with fewer differentiating words added on, even when not essentially cosplaying for strangers, and I said I was fine with that. And yeah, it does feel fine, to my slight surprise. I still don't feel generally like a mother since that's so often associated with having taken care of younger kids, but being this kind of "lightweight mom to an adult", which is to say being her mother, seems okay. If she has a kid in a few years then I might seriously regret this, as my squirrel will never shut up about my being a "hot grandma" -- I mean there have already been discussions about how if he buys me a rocking chair he will be bludgeoned with the pieces of it, and in short order! But for now... okay.

Sometimes a really good individual day coalesces out of the glop. On Tuesday I said, elsewhere: I got to see my friend's beehives, finished clues for two crossword puzzles with two different collaborators, put primer on three radiator covers I'm painting, took a juggling class, gave my other friend a stack of books, and cooked a new recipe. 🥰 Oh and I ran into my bio-kid at the bus stop, which is always fun. Yeah. That felt good.

I forgot to post this last night after a long day of taking care of details, and two cool things happened while I was forgetting! One of them is going to be of interest and will get its own friends-only post, the other is that I did good straddle-ups onto canes. Yes, using a very remedial setup of a minitramp on one side and a crash mat on the other BUT STILL.

A week of sleeping, and of details. Mostly email, and trying to finish up the multitude of active crossword puzzles in order to submit them when the NYT reopens its submissions next Wednesday. Of those, one more is finished; two are still in clueing. I had the somewhat bad fortune to have a theme query approved, when it's both a collaboration with a total newbie and is for the British/Australian market. This is a pain and requires its own wordlists, etc, and I think I should stick to my own side of the pond if I survive this one, but at least there's no rush to get it done for Wednesday.

A good friend of mine quit Google after nearly 20 years. Last day was Friday, first day of new job will be Tuesday. So strange.

I'm somewhat in search of time away from the computer. To this end I cooked a big batch of chili, and got a recipe for stuffed tomatoes from my acro base, and I have a mid-sized painting project to do in the basement (radiator covers for our tenants) that might be pretty chill with a good audiobook.

I've been struggling to express how different my relationship with time has become since last year. A day still takes about as long as always, subjectively speaking, but I'm not living for the future anymore, and I spend a lot less time thinking about the middle future -- like "next week" or "next month". The current week is most of what there is, with some thought for the faraway future just to keep myself on track.

The slush reading got ridiculous -- having gotten through a final 20 or so today, in the end I took an initial look at an even 100 stories. Equivalent to about five books' worth. Most of them were bad; some were in Arabic, broke the rules, or just had such awful grammar that I felt okay with an early exit. A few are good! I believe that only one story is going to win in each of two categories, so I'm fairly convinced that the final winners will be high-quality. I liked this sentence from one of today's, even though I probably disagree with it: “The human mind is just electrical repetition convincing itself it has a soul.” Fits in with my very enjoyable reading of A World Appears, which is all about consciousness.

Because it was the Week of Spreadsheets (apparently), I also had a little party yesterday in which people wrote 200 postcards to swing state voters -- this program. I'm always worried that it's way too many postcards, people won't come, etc, but it worked out perfectly. With nine people coming and going, they all got written in just over the time allotted. They'll be mailed in a few weeks.

It was also a Week of Working Out Too Much. Three days in a row of actual handstand coaching is a lot for your girl here. Postcard day was, at last, total rest day, following a chill date with the bug in which we finished watching Widow's Bay, and I needed all that. My shoulders were pretty sick of my bullshit.

Some things were more reasonable. I had a fun dinner with some ex-coworkers. I also attended a lovely game night in which I did my first actually enjoyable storytelling game; I played a lovely young lady who was about to marry the local lord but had fallen in love with a travelling merchant, and also was part owl-fairy without knowing it. Being me, of course she went through with the marriage. For the money! My young lady was no idiot. But she arranged to see her merchant occasionally on the side, too. I'm still laughing at that.

Birdie is back from Spain, ready to plunge into her final semester of her MPH degree, and I have tickets to Spain in October! Lay your Barcelona recommendations on me. I am ready for them.

Some opportunities came up early in the week, and I enjoyed being able to jump on them. One of these was small -- helping to set up the new small studio space for my circus school, for a couple of hours. The other turned out to be a lot bigger: helping to read the slush pile for the inaugural Protopian Prize in science fiction. The idea being: let's publish stories showing an achievable, optimistic future characterized by continuous, incremental progress (in other words: realistic optimism). To date I've read 59 stories -- a few of which were good, although most are not. I like it! I used to read slush in college, and this seems like a good cause.

Circus: I had a good backbend lesson with a new "best", and then a good acro lesson. The teacher pointed out a couple of things my partner could do to make my life easier, and with those changes plus good-faith jumping on my part we got our hand-to-hand back out of lines at last. I wonder how many times I'll need to learn that partner acro is a two-person endeavor and that it's rarely all my fault? Anyway, that felt great, and now all the closures and break weeks are over with. Hopefully my handstands can be fixed soon too. And to lower the stakes a little, I've signed up for juggling 101 with

apfelsingail; that should be fun and I am not setting any goals related to it.

I spent a bit of time on houses, including mine (fine, I just installed new key racks) and stayed on top of email. Much of which came from my dad, who whined all week about his virus and coughing; but he seems to be on the mend now. This weekend I had extra time because there was no open studio, and I'd been feeling some discomfort around my wardrobe and other stuff; so I spent those couple of hours going through books, clothes, earrings and nail polish. Getting rid of stuff is wild -- even when I feel like I've cut pretty deep, there's always so much left.

Floof: saw Perse in a series of one-act plays! She was in two of the nine (?) plays, which were overall better than last year's and was a stone-cold killer in both. And speaking of that family, I finally got to curl up with my squirrel for the first time since Montreal, which was... five weeks ago? Dates with the bug have also been fun; we're watching Widow's Bay which is more comedy than I usually like in my horror, but which is entertaining.

Looking back on this week, it was a whole lot of social:

Spent all day Monday on financial check-up, adding the new owners to the condo association in various ways, and arranging (then carrying off) an actual meeting with them. They seem pretty darn okay, although it's their first time owning a home and thus their first time owning a condo. Time to step up a little more on the property-management side of all that. Ah, there was also a break for lunch with an ex coworker.

Floofed off to Newburyport for a day with two friends who, it turns out, were both feeling terrible for various reasons and dealing with that in various ways. Whuff. Good talk in the car about the basics of paganism though. (I could be halfway to pagan if you squint at me just right, but definitely not all the way. I suspected as much, but it was nice to learn from a better source.) When we got back, what was being delivered but the new vanity for the ADU over there! So I dealt with that for a while and, along with ordering a few more things, that's all I did for it this week.

Floofed to the museum for a talk about fandom, and introduced two people who I thought should meet.

Floofed to the zoo with the bug, because he wanted to go. And thence the Arboretum, all on foot. It was a tiring day, but we saw a lemur do a really big yawn; and tamarins chasing each other around; and some adorable prairie dogs napping together.

Met a new crossword friend, through Quarte, who is still having no fun dealing with chemo but who enjoyed our chatter. I paid back the favor by e-introducing him to my friend A who lives on a boat.

Our relentlessly social neighbors organized a house grilling event! Oh man! We went, agreed it's sad how everyone goes and stares at their screens alone, then gratefully left to stare at screens for a while.

Also, wonderfully, my squirrel came back from Iceland and I GOT TO SEE ITTTTTT. Even with not staying overnight, even with it having a stupid cold and me therefore masking, it was nice to squeeze it and watch a low-budget horror movie and get a snack. I got a little jar of crowberry jam which I am loving.

My dad landed in the emergency room with chest pain, but it was "just" a virus, exacerbated by shitty air quality from fires in his area. I'm not thrilled about that, or about the long emails he sends me explaining the Middle East in depressing terms.

Going to be vague here, but I am feeling some kind of way about watching people have trouble, and watching other people possibly sprint toward even more trouble. It's so hard not to judge. I know we all carry within ourselves some notion of what eccentricities we can get away with, and where we need to bend to the ways of the world in order to survive, and where we need to not bend in order to survive as ourselves. I have these too! But goddamn... yeah... I godddamn, people. Bend, don't break.

A somewhat more subdued week. I got really disappointed with my own acro/handstand performance on Sunday and Monday (followed by an awkward call with my mom), and spent a long time just trying to shake the resultant feelings. A very brief lesson with Tiny Person inspired some minor hope, but I missed my usual lessons and also now my squirrel is gone for a week and a half. Bleh.

Reading was good though: I read Don't Be Evil by Claire Stapleton in two days, stopping for interjections like "me too, omg!" and "I fucking remember that" and "preach it" along the way. And I read The Nice House By the Sea which is a horror-genre graphic novel in a series I like, and some chapters of Evil and A World Appears at some point too.

The cottage renovators started to build a wall I didn't want, which I only know because I peeked in on Weds night -- glad I did that. Had to redirect them, then spent about $3K at Home Depot over the weekend on a washer/dryer stack, a vanity and assorted shower/bathroom hardware. It was a "sales tax holiday" in my state, so at least the timing was right. The client herself seems a little checked out at this point, after a long span of wanting to help design every detail. She's either busy, or convinced that I got the idea of what she wants, or has given up hope somehow. Ugh, I hope I'm not just designing a home in which a nice old lady is going to be miserable.

Good news over at the other house, though. I learned that the Unit 1 buyers are... wait for it... also associated with Zillian! They got in touch with me after I used a mutual friend to ping them on corp, and we're now chattering away. I'll meet them tomorrow, as well as doing a bunch of electronic stuff to hook them up with people and bank accounts.

Early part of the week: went to the dermatologist and got four moles removed, ones that I had developed an annoying habit of touching while thinking about random things. I also sent a batch of completed crossword clues off to someone I might be collaborating on a puzzle with, and generally continued to nerd out in that direction. Got a nice win in acro class, doing a standing h2h entirely on our own for the first time in ages, too.

Tuesday I got my passport, packed a bag and took it over to the squirrel's place for transport to Montreal. Then returned to Harvard Square to finish turning my Fjallraven backpack, which I'd sold on their "pre-loved" store, into a new pair of shorts. Caught up with Norwood via video chat. Wednesday was entirely taken up by handstand class, one more person's colonoscopy from which I drove them home, and an attempt at doing lots of chores to avoid leaving a giant mess behind me.

And then, Montreal! My flight was on time and, aside from suffering usurious pricing on the part of Lyft, everything went well. I found my squirrel wincing and breathing deeply in a witchy, dimly lit basement while a nice guy named Alexi tortured his arm with the tattoo gun. Held his hand for a while.

The store above the basement has boutiquey clothing and jewelry, and art and a cafe and a baby duck in a cat carrier, all run by a super-goth married couple. I was a little worried about feeling obligated to buy expensive clothes there since everyone else had done it, and was pleased to find one piece I actually liked.

But wait -- baby duck in a cat carrier? Yes. And, friends, this baby duck loved me. I got to hold him, and he nestled right into me and contentedly tried to eat my hair and hands. Best five minutes of the whole trip.

Super-goth store lady asked about polyamory in the most hilarious way I've ever been asked. I'm sure everyone asks you this -- no actually, they do not usually phrase it this way, but say it -- why keep your husband if you've found a new one? I'm still cracking up at that. Yes I still like my husband. No I don't want to blow up my life, or my squirrel's life either.

Old Town is darling enough and I wandered some art galleries and gift shops, but I wasn't in the mood for Serious Art Shopping and already felt like I'd done something for my wardrobe. So the most fun I had on my own in the city was when I got a day pass for a gym and hung out in there for about two hours. When the squirrel wasn't being tattooed he wasn't allowed out in the sun, so we had to do things after sunset: a big ferris wheel one night, and dinner with my contortion coach the second. That was fun and we split a bottle of "Ice Breaker" sake that I liked a lot.

The tattoo came out spectacular. I was there to take care of the person, and the art for me was quite secondary, but I'm delighted that he's delighted, and he came through the three day sit (ugh!) incredibly well, despite complaining that shading down near his elbow was "pain peyote" and he was literally seeing colors from the pain. ("Congrats on the synesthesia", I said.)

On the last day we hit the Museum of Fine Arts for a couple of hours, and drove back in time to deliver me for my date with the bug! It was really nice to be home, and have food that didn't feel too heavy, and watch a cozy show with the bug and with Caltrop curled up on my lap.

Poutine: okay. Eggs Benedict: too runny and insanely rich, like how did they get that much butter-filled onion stuff in between the eggs and the toast? Croissants: spectacularly pretty. Bagels: good, but we have some good ones here too. Pharmacies: nowhere to be found, and I really should have sent sunblock up in the car instead of assuming I'd easily find some there.

I liked urban paintings by Patrick Rousseau and surreal paintings by Wifredo Lam, and learning that there even is such a thing as Canadian Aboriginal Syllabics, a very cool-looking written language.

I texted Lion, who I heard had indeed left Zillian, to see whether he'd gotten into his intended AI Hotness Company or what; he said no, and then So I've instead switched to doing some third party independent work on the topic space. I'm a little more than 6 weeks into things and I think it's going to be pretty novel and important in the field. Oh dang... it's fine that he's nerding out, but I wish there were publicly traded stock in his thing go that I could short it.

I have gotten myself super nerd-sniped on the crossword puzzles. I now have three collaborations going and two more ideas that I definitely want to pursue on my own. In each category one is now Sunday-sized (21x21) instead of the usual 15x15, so that's also new... those are way harder, and fewer people make them, and they have way higher acceptance rates. Anyway, this feels odd. For months I had no new ideas, and now they poppin'.

The most dramatic thing I did IRL this week is go to the passport agency, do the "please expedite my renewal, I'm here in person with proof of a plane ticket" dance, and successfully arrange to pick up a new passport next Tuesday and fly to Montreal next Thursday. It was interesting to see how many parents were there getting passports for their kids. And the second most dramatic thing I did is pick up my squirrel from his colonoscopy, which happened on Friday. One more of these to go, and then everyone in my friend circle will have gotten the scope up the butt.

The squirrel and I had an excellent dinner at new-to-me seafood restaurant Moeca. I wore a cute strapless top that I picked up at Urban Outfitters, and... maybe such things are staying on my body better than they used to? I had no trouble with it. And then there was also a good brunch with

fairoriana & husband.

There was a circus show that showcased all the professional-track students at my school, and everyone was so fierce! All the enbies took their shirts off for performances, and that gave me some weird gender-feels since I wasn't expecting to see the chest areas of people I usually think of as being more femme-side. Not like I objected -- circus people tend to be well worth looking at. Overall, the best show my little circus school has put on in quite a few years. I'd say they should do 18+ shows more often.

So, a good week? A good week, I think! My toe has been hurt for six weeks as of tomorrow, and it can now jump down from standing acro positions again; the last thing it can't do is extend a lot under load, like being the back foot in a deep lunge. I think I'll start purposely working it in ranges where it hurts just slightly.

I finished my video class on sewing knit tops, and clearly the next right thing is to use all that book learning on the pattern I bought from the teacher, with the fabric I already have washed and dried. But I'm not actually expecting to start until after next week; I think I'll be crossing words until after Montreal.

Sometimes I forget to say things. Things like, it turns out I like the ritual of settling in with my reading glasses to read something. It lends a certain formality and intention to the act of reading, that makes me want to do a good job and get really into my book. Things like: almost two weeks ago now, my base and I finally managed something in acro that neither of us had ever succeeded in before, and that felt nice. (Front mount to shoulders, absorb, tempo immediately into hand-to-hand.) The sky doesn't feel like the limit anymore, but I can still learn.

Anyway, this week was an odd one. No circus between Sunday and Sunday. I watched a lot of videos for my sewing class. The colonoscopy pretty much took Tuesday and Wednesday, and on Wednesday night I went to stay with Quarte to be his backup and support person in case of an ER visit while he was on chemo. Luckily that didn't happen. Came home, had completely forgotten I promised to be on a podcast on Thursday, recorded that while still feeling a little dopey, and then spent a couple of hours watering my base's plants. Yes, he has too many plants. Yes, there is such a thing as too many plants.

My squirrel has been off travelling, so I didn't see him this weekend, although I did run over to his house to fix an HVAC problem. And I scheduled an attempt to hop up to Canada to support him during his upcoming Painful Tattoo Adventure, although my doubleplus ungood passport turns out to be expired and so I'm going through the headache of attempting a rush renewal. Such a pain. As for the squirrel, he got announced as the new CEO of his company on Monday, and he's really too busy to see me much right now if I don't hop on planes to follow him about.

I got myself into the good kind of crossword trouble, having a brilliant/weird theme idea on Tuesday (nice for distraction during prep) and then offering to collab with someone else on his Sunday-sized (21x21 grid) idea. I now have two collaborations in progress, plus one brilliant/weird idea that I'm failing to drag a collaborator into, and the NYT is closed for submissions from 7/20 until 9/7 anyway. I've somehow been doing this for a full year now.

Rounding out the week with social time, on Saturday I watched the bug's band play a really good set at Cambridge Porchfest. Then this morning I went berry-picking with Birdie and then to circus open studio. Then watched Disclosure Day with the bug. It's definitely Spielberg, has some nice camera angles and shots, and features a little girl who I really thought was CGI (and deep into the uncanny valley). Joke's on me, she's a real person unless someone's super committed to the gag. Anyway, it's definitely another movie that ends where I would have liked it to start, but it was entertaining.

I'd wanted to get a colonoscopy before my good insurance ran out, and started particularly wanting it when one of my friends turned out to have a dozen-plus polyps and another had full-on colon cancer. I cleverly scheduled it for this week because there's a youth camp preventing me from taking my usual classes anyway, and I'm glad I did that because it really did knock me out of commission for 2-3 days.

( Read more... )

How is my actual colon, you wonder? They removed one polyp, which seems reasonable enough, and maybe justifies the starvation. My colon is long and twisty ("torturous", said the report! Rude!), and apparently some abdominal palpitation of my sleeping body was required in order to move the scope around. There was no pain on recovery, so... not my problem. Apparently women's colons are 8-10cm longer than men's and there's generally a smaller space to pack them into, so a few extra turns are fairly common.

We had a week of heat waves (two days at almost exactly 100 degrees), and it felt like not much was happening, but in retrospect a lot was happening.

Fourth of July stuff? On Tuesday I went with Birdie to the fireworks show put on by my town, which is always carefully not on the actual 4th because nobody wants to compete with the huge Boston show. I was impressed, both with the show and with how many people turned out for it! We watched from far enough away to be out of the crowd, and it was still thrillingly close.

The squirrel and I met with a contractor on Tuesday about the redesigned cottage bathroom/closet that I've been working on. He quoted us a high price but also an appealing level of competence, engagement and organization. After several long talks about whether to let the squirrel's mom pay for some of it, which was not a simple topic for all kinds of reasons, we pulled the trigger and signed up on Thursday. Paid the deposit and everything. Let the demolition party begin! I spent a while on Tuesday, and again today, picking up little concrete overflow bits ("concrete kibble", I decided to call it) and screws, and spreading displaced gravel around to be level again. It's getting tidier.

Also on Tuesday, the existing upstairs tenants declared their intention to sign up for another year with Squirrels Inc. They agreed to a rent increase, we agreed to look into some small issues for them. Which I spent this morning doing. The peel-and-stick tiles in their kitchen are sooooo nasty and sticky, but so easy, to replace! Ewwww, ahhhh. I replaced what I could and bought some more.

Wednesday, new neighbors moved in -- at the house I live in -- to replace the ones who moved out. These ones also seem nice, but with nobility yet to be determined. We asserted our position as house elders, and now they come to us with cute questions like which garbage can is theirs (it's all communal) and whether they can use the compost bin (sure, join us). They have a two-week-old baby, which is the tiniest baby I've seen in a long time.

On Friday, I drove (okay, was driven) more than 2 hrs to the birthday party of the Monk, my ex acro partner. It was one of the 100-degree days, and I ended up spending four hours listening to Shearwater, a band I had to that point never heard of at all. The driver's favorite, obviously. I think I liked it, but maybe that was primarily a decision of self-defense? Anyway, this ended up feeling like the second half of July 4 festivities, since it involved outdoor grilling and bikini wearing and bug spray. The temperature wasn't bad... in the shade... as long as I didn't move.

Thursday and Saturday involved the baking and eating of a Fächertorte over at Quarte's, with the bug. It was many layers of filling, and extremely caloric. Like apple pie plus layers of plum jam, ground walnut goop, and ground poppy seed goop. I'm interested in finding ways to move an apple pie in that direction without creating a four-inch-thick monstrosity that can only be consumed by a crowd. Anyway, Quarte is imperfect but he also has cancer and is scared and is an old friend, so the bug and I are trying to be nice to him.

Workouts continue. My toe is still healing and constraining me a little. Wednesday and Sunday I did some good press practice -- no new records of any sort, just trying to get better with my current set-up and not lean too far forward in the initial lift. Trying to feel like I'm actively balancing with my hands the whole time. Trying to compress. Tiny Person was here for just a couple of days but I think she's gone until the end of the summer now, unfortunately... so I can't learn from her right now.

I did get a new-personal-record backbend on Thursday, thanks to the 100 degrees.

Also excitingly, my squirrel came back from Montreal with the phoenix tattoo design that he's been wanting forever. He finally found the right one! So he's going back up in a couple of weeks to get inked, and I might tag along. I like Montreal.

The upcoming week brings its own peculiarities. I'm getting my first colonoscopy, and circus school is closed during the daytime in favor of youth camp, and the squirrel is going away again right after getting announced as the new CEO at his workplace (!). Weather's looking a lot more reasonable, and I'm hoping to spend more time at home and watch a lot more of the sewing course I've started watching.

Yet another crossword puzzle was rejected by the NYT, on the grounds that the theme didn't offer a satisfying "click". Sigh... I thought it clicked plenty... but I've submitted the next one I had ready to go, anyway. Two more are in progress with collaborators. I think I'm getting better, but I don't know whether it matters that I'm getting better. The one they accepted seems on par to me with several that they haven't accepted, so the signal is noisy and also maybe my judgement isn't developed well enough yet.

I successfully made a pair of pajama pants from scratch, using only the serger and coverstitch machines. Exciting. Working through a video class on sewing knit tops.

Our second-floor neighbors moved out, which is sad because they were sweet neighbors. Young and kind of noble -- she's a pharmacy tech, he's a military guy with a shiny new Harvard Law degree. They lived here for 3 years while he earned that, and now off they go to their new lives. (They left me with a new table to hold my proliferating sewing machines, and in return they took some parallettes I wasn't using. They can do dips and think of me.)

Very satisfyingly, I got to oversee a concrete pour over at Blue-Green Street. The concrete truck was loud and dramatic, and the workmen brought the concrete from the truck to the framed-out path like wheelbarrows full of cake batter. One guy basically stood in the cake batter with waders, stirring it with his feet to get the bubbles out and scraping it flat with a giant spatula, while the other kept bringing more loads and dropping more concrete right behind the first guy. I kept expecting some kind of pratfall to ensue during that process but, no, they had their rhythm down. Apparently it takes about six years to get as good as that guy is. Anyway, it's done and paid for, and past the most sensitive part of hardening. (On Monday the guys will come back to take the wooden framing away, and maybe tidy around the edges.)

And finally-ish, I attended my ex-boyfriend's wedding today. Solo, so that could have been awkward. But it was very informal; and actually it was nice to catch up with his sister and his kids, and his other partner who I knew already. I did some shenanigans with climbing an archway (if not meant to be used as monkey bars, why monkey bar shaped?) which led to some minor acrobatics and inspired a few others to also climb the archway. My sprained toe didn't even protest, although it did complain at the four minutes I spent swing-dancing with the groom. Something about being on my toes and then having the nerve to step in various directions. Anyway, his new wife seems sweet, and everyone seemed to be sincere about saying she brings out the best in him... so... good for them. I put in the time to be supportive, stayed through the vows, then split to go to circus practice.

I hurt my foot last Monday. It's a sprain of the main joint at the base of the big toe (the metatarso-phalangeal joint), but caused by bending the toe under, not bending it back as in "turf toe". This is one of those injuries they don't do anything about, aside from having you wear a stiff-soled shoe, so I'm just going about, seeing what exercise I can still do and avoiding hard falls onto the foot. We had a surprisingly good acro lesson on Friday, booked so that we could be in safety lines and soften all my landings; hand-to-hand is getting better again. I was a little weaker on proto-pressing and on TGUs in the gym but, eh, working with an injury is always hard mode.

I'm definitely not going to that DNC training this coming week, because a) they didn't even bother to reject me and b) the concrete-pouring crew is supposed to be showing up on Friday, although the weather might cause that to get postponed. I read somewhere about taking a little moment to process rejections: feeling the sting, consciously taking note of the new clarity and thinking about what space the rejection opens up in your life for doing something else with. Easy enough in this case.

Small events: did a contortion class with Birdie and made some cute duo shapes. Took a walk with an old coworker who is still managing to enjoy tech, largely by dropping back from management to IC work, and I'm happy for him although I wouldn't want to trade. Reached a point of doneness with a crossword, spent an hour or so doing proof of concept on my next collaboration. Had a nice ramble with

apfelsingail, which led to some messing around with my new sloper pattern (the neck is too small).

Other projects remain Ongoing with Nothing Really To Report. It's been warm all week and the world feels sleepy.

A birthday-ish week, and overall summery and positive. I have to say 49 is seeming fine so far.

On my actual birthday the bug took me out to breakfast, and Birdie brought me cake later, and I went to a contortion lesson and dynamic acro class at circus school. I did my monthly finance audit, but not my other chores.

The next day I had lunch with Squirrel Mama, and talked to her some more about modifications to the rental cottage. I'm a little worried about being able to get someone in there to do the work in time to pick up another 6-month lease starting in September, but I'm already moving on an arborist and a concrete firm, in order to create a paved path to the cottage. (She needs it for stable walking; the child has pointed out that it will help everyone get out to the back yard barefoot, and yet another person has pointed out the relative ease of picking up dog poop from a smooth surface. Curb cut effect in action!). Squirrel Mama has now popped off back to India, and our last tenant left on Saturday (they will be missed) so the cottage is ours to mess with again, and that does feel kinda good. I like that cottage.

Sewing: I took measurements of myself in an attempt to create a sloper, and went with

apfelsingail to a fabric shop where they had many fabulous patterns and I bought... grey jersey in cotton/lycra and in rayon. Pretty sure my next move is to pay for this online course and get started.

Crosswords: a rejection from NYT Games. Womp womp. But I still have three more in the queue and you never freaking know what the editors will like.

Saturday: finally got to have my Treetop Adventures party! In the end three other people came through the double black diamond course with me, including the bug! This is if you don't count Birdie and the squirrel, who followed me around heckling from the ground. I'm pleased that I did a great job this year on the twisted-ladder obstacle, and an okay job on the one that requires a bunch of little pull-ups despite not having trained my pulling strength much. And that people showed up, and didn't roast or freeze or get injured. And now I have done my big planning thing and am free of group organizing for a while!

Politics: at the moment I've given up on putting a lot of time into campaigns. It's not even clear how much individual campaigns matter, and we're stuck in a two-party system at a time when gerrymandering is fashionable again and people tend to vote by party line anyway. (Yeah, this Ezra Klein episode might have gotten to me). So. Maybe, but for now I'm just going to be writing get-out-the-vote postcards.

I did my shitty proto-press again on Wednesday, and flew some nice hand-to-hands on Friday. And have been modeling things for the bug's new class on documentary making, which is pretty fun. Overall, happy and busy. Amusingly, it kind of looks like the squirrel might be hiring another friend of ours at his new company, where he continues to be interim CEO? That would make for a fun drawing-together of some really excellent people.

OK. I have to go set up for tomorrow's documentary shoot.

Ups and downs this week. In order to figure out when something happened, I spent a while re-reading blog posts from the time when my career was getting seriously kneecapped. There is so much discussion of stress, crying, 14-hour days etc... it put me in a pretty bad mood. However, it feels like summer now. And various life was lived:

Yes! I got more insulation added to my attic with no drama! Nothing went wrong, the city didn't catch us doing it without a permit, it was on schedule.

Drove to Garden In the Woods with motyl. I bought a "native pollinator variety pack" of 25 plugs spanning five shade-loving species, bought an extra shrub because why not, and accepted two more plants from motyl. Now they're all in the ground! All will be watered, but only the strong will likely survive.

Hung out three other times with ex-coworkers (two of these involved motyl so I think that's a record for hangouts in one week). All of it felt indulgent, fun and warming. I talked another one of them into joining me on the crossword constructor Discord server.

Finished listening to King Sorrow while pulling out some BSW from the neighborhood.

Asked for / accepted the job of renovating the rental cottage, in preparation for Squirrel Mama moving in next year. She's an octogenarian and will need some modifications made to the bathroom, plus it's time to get a washer/dryer installed. I will enjoy the design challenge -- and importantly, she's not my family member, so gathering requirements from her doesn't push my buttons.

Succeeded in some art, making a reverse applique T-shirt with metallic stars peeking out. This is still not quite done because I want to add another layer of soft jersey behind some of the metallic stuff, but it's close.

The squirrel got me to express a desire for an actual thing for my birthday, and then (because it is a horrible creature) bought me a nice one and got it new, rather than refurbished like I asked for. Argh! It's too much for a birthday present! So anyway, now I have a cover stitch machine, and should soon be able to make professional-style seams and hems for knitwear. I'm excited! Half my Psylo clothing has detailing that I love that, when you look closely, is made with a cover stitch machine.

Not sure if I'm excited or not: I worked on press handstands for a long time at open studio, and I did one good one that my coach says actually counts. I didn't have a mat under my feet, but still had one to press my forearms into, so I said I thought it didn't count (this is still a drill) and he said I need to stop giving myself shit. I guess "my coach thinks I did one" is a pretty cool milestone in itself.

On the medical front, I've scheduled a colonoscopy. Best to get that done before I lose my good insurance. Quarte's surgery on Monday went well. And my dad had some kind of vertigo episode that the doctors briefly suspected was a TIA ("mini-stroke") although they could not find signs of such a thing having happened. It did send him to the ER, but I didn't hear about it until it was over, so I didn't have time to worry. There's some real gallows humor hiding somewhere in the "Thanks In Advance" interpretation of TIA.

I applied to this three-day training on political campaigns, run by the DNC, but then we also attended a 1-hr virtual info session and the whole thing sounds pretty unsuited to me, overall. They are mostly looking for young outgoing people. Before specialization they want pretty much everyone to take a generalist "entry-level" job (organizer, which doesn't look approachable to me, and to which I'm not very suited). And, lastly, they want "ground game" with feet on local ground, but instead of recruiting locals they often expect candidates to relocate for a few months. None of that sounds good. I found a Harvard Law School guide to working on political campaigns that meshes in interesting ways with that info session. Overall, I'm getting the vague feeling that there might be more digital / spreadsheet / email scutwork to be done for umbrella organizations like the DCCC than there are in any particular candidate's campaign. (Umbrella "coordinated campaigns" seem to also exist at state level.)

Someone pointed out that I might be a fairly effective door-to-door canvasser simply by virtue of being a good-looking white woman. Gross, but maybe true. I'd rather do spreadsheets though. I also have plenty of other things to do, including probably a bathroom remodel this summer. So... is it time to give up on this idea of working to support the midterm elections? So I'm waiting to see about getting into the three-day thing, but I don't know if I'll go even if I get in. I don't wanna be an "organizer".

My partners had bigger news this week than I did: in particular it was the bug's birthday, and the bug also started a cool class on how to make documentaries, while the squirrel was announced as interim CEO of his company. (That's an opportunity/trap that came entirely out of the blue a couple of weeks ago, and which I didn't want to mention until it was real, but is now upon us. I'm pleased at the evolution of his thinking about the position, and that he's trying really hard to set a firm repeating date night with Perse, but the whole thing is still wild.)

I modeled for the bug's documentary homework, and got over the last of whatever cold virus was clinging onto me. I listened to a lot more King Sorrow, finished knitting my cowl, and mixed a bag of compost into my little garden bed (everywhere except the three patches where last year's plants are still alive). I found myself sad at this year's tremendous proliferation of black swallow-wort, including in places where I personally spent hours digging the plants up by their nasty little root-balls last year; I guess the May rain was perfectly timed for the stuff. I'm pulling out tall, tall vines with 1/4" diameter stalks. Is any of it even worth trying? Did I do any good, am I doing any good now? When's the last time I even saw a monarch butterfly anyway?

This feeling of my work not doing any good was exacerbated by having to cancel my ropes-course party yesterday, due to a freak storm that brought rain and below-40s temperatures. Oh and then we had a big meteor explode over Massachusetts while I was working out. Everyone assumed it was something local at first, but nope: just the equivalent of 300 tons of TNT going off forty miles over our heads. (I didn't hear it. I was in the gym where thuds and bangs are pretty normal, plus my new Eargasm earplugs, which seem fantastic so far). I was bummed about that party cancellation, but it seems we'll have just as many folks for the fallback date of June 13, and anyway nobody wanted to be shivering/miserable in the treetops. When Saturday came around, I didn't either. There was birthday cake at my ex-coworker's house, and that was enough.

I submitted last week's crossword puzzle. I gridded up a new one that I won't be able to submit for a while. Might be a little obsessed, but I like this better than the months where I wasn't getting any new ideas.

Despite the feelings, accomplishments were accomplished: I got my new rental place de-leaded and have the certificate of lead compliance (woo!), and the boiler is replaced over at the squirrel nest (with minor follow-up drama where the technicians left something turned off and then the tenants didn't have hot water). And I fixed a bathtub drain mechanism myself while I was over there.

Hoping for a little more art and less house this week, but tomorrow morning there are folks showing up to blow more insulation into my attic, so we shall see.

I spent much of this week with my sinuses a little unhappy, trying to figure out whether I have allergies or a mild cold or both. Pulling my energy together enough for each day's workout, then flomping. (Mostly the flomp is, indeed, listening to King Sorrow on Audible while knitting.) I also got some vaccinations at CVS on Friday evening -- now that I think of it, my immune system may not have appreciated the extra homework, but it was assigned anyway.

It's been a rough week medically in my circles:

Three cats died -- not mine. One belonged to a close friend, one to the bug's bandmate and one to a crossword collaborator friend. That is three too many.

I found yet another bald spot on my head. Grr! So maybe the alopecia isn't stress-related anymore? Discovered on Wednesday, got cortisone shots on Friday. At least it doesn't hurt and doesn't show, and there's a whole new class of drugs coming along for the condition (JAK inhibitors) that seem amazing for more serious cases.

Last and worst, a friend from my MIT days (Quarte) has not-super-early-stage colon cancer. GAH. There's a very freaky cohort effect happening (for those not aware, individuals born since the 1960s face up to a 4-fold higher risk than previous births. One recent article from Nature calls out picloram (pesticide) as a contributing factor, but plenty of other studies have no idea what's going on.) My doctor's been having me do colon cancer screening of the "poke your poop" variety for a couple of years now, but I'm trying to get a colonoscopy of my own before losing my good insurance. I hate this news for many reasons, but to be selfish for a moment -- this guy is one of those health nuts who practically lives on chia seeds, and will chide smoothie-drinkers for not eating the fruit whole when it's so much better for you that way. There's an unavoidable feeling that if he has colon cancer, then the rest of us should be very worried indeed.

Training & making:

I kind of hacked up a solo crossword puzzle in two days -- one of my earliest ideas and way too simple to be new, except that nobody seems to have done it before (in the NYT). If I submit it, I'll max out how many can be in the queue at a time and will have to slow my roll.

Took a cool contortion workshop, specifically on the topic of calming one's nervous system while doing contortion. Mostly lecture format. The presenter was scattered but gave me a lot to think about, and for the next couple of weeks I'm supposed to keep a training journal.

It's all been extra quiet due to the long holiday weekend, which enticed my squirrel to travel away and also shut down my circus school. I have missed those things, but also seem to have needed the rest.

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Recent Entries

Autumn, estrogen, vaxxx, projects

All details all the time; but progress.

Crosswords, India trip planning, bees, ziplining

Crosswords and the eternal week

Things taken a smidge too far

Slush and other opportunities

A lot of social to go with my almost-zero circus

Subdued, but houses are housing

Half here, half Montreal

Nerd sniping, passport, seafood, circus

Strange new week, that has such people in't

Colonoscopy

A sneakily happenin' week

Neighbors, concrete, wedding, sewing

Sprained a toe; rejections; but pretty chill

Birthday-ish

Quite a week, in retrospect

Getting into political campaigns seems difficult

Efficacy, and the perception thereof

Subdued