ice water and ocicats

I need to post weekly-ish or I get the feeling of things building up in my head: things I want to remember or things that want to come out.

• I went to a zoo for the first time ever, that I'm aware of. Norwood and I only went there because we needed to be on mask/oudoor protocol last weekend and it seemed like a decent outdoor date, but he found out I'd never been, and got all excited. :) Apparently this is a thing parents do? Take kids to zoos? I've recognized and purposely filled in some things that I think of as "missing" from my basically-missing childhood, but this one somehow was never on my radar. Rectified now. Although I still have never seen an elephant or a giraffe in real life, so Norwood wants to take me to at least one more.


• Several new handstand records. I've been feeling strong. On Sunday I held a straight handstand for 1:07 (previous record was 1:04). Also in the last week: caught 5 kickups in a row on my bad side, pressed from 17" and succeeded at a weird little pike drill that I'd failed at before. And learned a whole new way of doing a straddle jump, which is interesting and different.


• New realms of ridiculous delight at having a Short Boyfriend. It turns out that, with human wingspan usually being about the same as human height, if someone is shorter than me I can spread out my arms and just SPAN THEM FROM HEAD TO TOE and pet both ends of them. I don't remember ever doing this with Smitten, oddly, but it's my new favorite thing. (My other partners could presumably do this to me, and they ought to! It is really fun!)


• Work is a writhing pile of ambiguity. More reorgs coming, but when? On the plus side, I got a random $2000 spot bonus for something I'd forgotten all about helping with; it's still that kind of place.


• Several people in my life are having trouble. There are dying parents scattered around, and probably an exploding marriage (poly situation: the spouse said you need to pick her or me which is basically the poly nightmare).


• Covid: I've been watching the case numbers fall. My county moved down into "high" risk on covidactnow.org this week, and my state seems likely to follow in 3-4 days. For myself I'm 8 days out from my 2nd mRNA shot, have had my last masked/distanced date with an existing partner (am soooo looking forward to seeing Norwood without all that on Sunday), and have sent in the last of my kits for weekly PCR testing today; by the next time I would have sent one, I'll be fully vaccinated. Amusingly, heisenbug and I talked over a lot of "will X be okay for me to do after we're both fully vaccinated" scenarios last week, and flat-out forgot to talk about the gym and the subway.


• We did our taxes over the weekend, with the aid of drinks and takeout, so that's done.

I'm going to want a new default icon when I'm fully vaccinated and I think I just picked it. Next time.