flexagon | Ten nights in Bangkok (Reply)

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.