ice water and ocicats

As I prepare to spill ink about my week... sometimes I think events matter as much as people allow them to. I know people who are constantly traveling, socializing, attending stuff, but who never seem to change as a result of all those experiences (of course I can't see inside their heads). And then there's me. I legitimately feel like something important/meaningful happened every day this week, except maybe Wednesday which I spent gloating about the news and looking at political memes.

• Monday I saw my old, old friend Bluechromis for the first time in several years, and we had a bit of a reunion. Her hair has turned pure white! That was the day before midterm elections, and we talked about politics and life. Through this conversation I learned that you can report a church to the IRS for electioneering -- all it takes is evidence of their supporting a politician or party. So that's a fun possibility for a new hobby (snicker).


• Tuesday I worked at a polling place all day! And I do mean all day, from 6:30AM to about 9:00PM. I was one of the nice ladies looking people up in a book, checking names off, and then handing out ballots ("I'm giving you a two-card ballot. The first one has two sides, so be sure to do front, back and front, okay?"). I got two one-hour breaks, and near the end I would have lost my voice if I hadn't remembered that I had a Spindrift with me. No training, shitty pay, but I saw a few people I knew, and something about actually doing the democracy felt a lot better than watching exit polls all day. Although... then I came home and the good news was rolling in! Went to sleep at 11:30 with the Senate majority already called for the Dems, woke up to see we had the House too.


• Wednesday there was gloating and recovery. And maybe a bunch of email.


• Thursday we attended a delightful "hot takes" gathering where folks gathered around a backyard fire, brought their hot takes, and were not allowed to use the internet -- so people could argue and bloviate without any fact-checking. This was at least as fun as it sounds, and I indulged in the pizza that was ordered. (God, cheese is really good. Maybe I could start having it, like, monthly?) I got in a few zingers and listened to a lot more, and really appreciated the community.


• Friday was more social; dinner with remnants of a poly discussion group we used to attend ages ago, followed by the Hump! film festival which was playing locally for once. I hadn't thought I was necessarily in the mood for watching, but, for the most part, I found the films cuter and sweeter than sometimes. This was another evening with good discussion. We got most of the way around the table with "What's a misconception you had about sex/bodies when you were younger". And the bug told the table about my crosswords and everyone squeed.


• Saturday I did my usual long workout at the gym (I got "yes ma'am" from a younger dude who I asked to give me some space for TGUs.... yikes), and then found out that I would be attending a Nice Dinner With Old Friends at the squirrel's place. I was a little nervous about meeting his Important Old Friends with my social battery blinking down into the red, but I think I did okay. The focus wasn't on me and I didn't try to make it so.

I did little or big things for Birdie and the cottage on several more days. I'm working down my little DIY punchlist and the contractor has one too. So the cottage has a new levered doorknob, more weatherstripping, a plain plate replacing a deadbolt that nobody had a key to on the 2nd door, a new vanity (rescued from the wrong address, then installed, then plumbed). The washer isn't working and needs an electrician, and we're having trouble finding a glass door that will fit the shower enclosure, but... things move along. Soon enough we'll be able to get the final inspection.

The bug and I are reading Enshittification for our micro book club (just me and him), and I think this added to my rage when, on Saturday, I found that Adobe somehow signed me up for an expensive year-long contract for Acrobat Pro with shitty add-on AI features. I think I've wiggled out of the $100-plus cancellation fee they wanted to charge me, but ugh! Whatever dark pattern they're using, I'm mad about it and I'll be purchasing a different PDF editor shortly. Purchasing. Because fuck these subscription models.

India trip planning never ends. I messed up my typhoid vaccine (the pills were supposed to stay refrigerated!?) and apparently I should really keep my knees and shoulders covered while I'm there (mrr?). The squirrel is dreading it the way I dreaded Montana, so, at his request, I dragged him through his visa applications this morning. Poor critter. I'm worried about a few things myself, but at least there's not childhood stuff tangled up in it for me.

• Voting: one of the first tasks after return from Spain was my mail-in ballot, with its annoyingly long list of 10 ballot questions. I figured out my opinions and dropped it off. Then later the town called me and asked me if I'm still free to work the polls on voting day! Yeah! I am psyched, I will do it. Turn that democracy crank.


• Crossword victory: another acceptance of a puzzle by the Fancy Newspaper! This one's a Sunday, which is bigger and pays more; I also think it's going to be considered difficult. The commenters who hoped not to see my name again are going to be disappointed... sometime next summer. In the meantime, I'm thrilled to get confirmation that I'm not a one-hit wonder; maybe this is something that's actually going to happen from time to time.


• Paperwork victory: with the bug, finally opened a new bank account for my building's condo association! This is the end of a long story involving a dead guy, a lost IRS letter, many phone calls and a couple of years. Emboldened by the victory, that same day I sent off forms to the IRS to update both my condo associations' contact information. (Did you know that's theoretically supposed to happen within 60 days of the contact person leaving a condo association? LOL. I bet it almost never happens.)


• Insurance expiring: as I come to the end of my COBRA's tail, I squeezed in one more annual checkup (with pap smear) and one more dermatology look-over. The derm grew quite suspicious of a large mole on my foot which, to be fair, I'd always considered a birthmark rather than a mole. So she removed it, which actually hurt a lot and continues to hurt somewhat. My final move is probably to use my vision insurance to partially cover a pair of prescription computer glasses -- which I've been living just fine without, but which should also work for reading -- and then I'll fall off the snake and onto my High Bronze plan.


• Condo budgets: I've pretty much figured out condo budgets for both my condo buildings for next year, with some talking yet to be done about how much slush to add in to each budget. I didn't want that to take me all week, but here we are.


• I'm doing some easy reading and some hard reading. In easy-reading news, I paused on How To Become the Dark Lord and Die Trying in order to read Dungeon Crawler Carl. This is kind of interesting since both of them play with bringing (violent, bloody) videogame mechanics into real life. Both make me uncomfortable, and in both cases they are fun reads and I wanna know what happens, so I'm gonna finish them. In hard-reading news, I'm nearly to the end of The Deluge, where the last several chapters in a row have brought deaths that really matter. In two more hours of listening I'll be giving it a devastated 5-star review... and going off to research climate change to see how realistic it really is. Ugh, it'll be hard to pick a new audiobook after that.

I also did some India trip prep; in particular, took all my typhoid vaccine pills. These had some, well, splattery, downstream side effects. But it's done, and I'd rather have a little annoyance at home than a serious disease while in a foreign country. Speaking of this, I also booked one more hotel and a Bangalore tour, which might be pretty much everything I can do in advance. What a project. People keep asking me why my planned trip is so short; gah. It seems quite long enough and complicated enough for me already, that's why.

Next week's excitement should include the completion (?) of my cottage renovation. The contractor sounded really confident about being done by Nov 1, and paint happened last week, but it's still all dusty and the appliances aren't installed so I'm fretting a bit. Will Birdie be able to move in time, or will she have to bounce around to friends' couches for a few days? I guess when I put it that way, it's not super high stakes.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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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.

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.

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.