Reading

Current Mood: tired
Current Location: my apartment

Entry tags:

June 24th: Plains and storms, cool old house

Last Tuesday, we headed back up to the plains again. There was a pretty good thunderstorm chance, so we wanted to see if we could get a good view of any of them.

Eh... mixed results. We did get to see a little bit of nice lightning, but the storms lost most of their oomph by the time they reached us up there. Except for the rain. There was a LOT of water in those clouds! Somehow we managed not to get any hail, which was surprising. The storm eventually reintensified a bit farther north, and while we followed it for a while (through the absolutely wild quantities of rain), we eventually gave up on it. Partially because we didn't want to go much farther, and partially because the rain was so heavy you couldn't see much else, so even if it had done something cool, it would have been hard to see.

Before following it north, we sat in the rain in a parking lot for a bit. This is a screenshot from a video I took of the rain. I'm not sure this even really shows just how intense it was!

Down one of the county roads we were on, we did see a neat old structure. We were able to pull over to grab a couple pictures on the way back, once the rain had stopped.

A couple pictures of clouds, some of swallow nests:

Stormclouds!

More clouds!

We've taken this exit off the highway before, but there's a really extensive colony of cliff swallows:

I love their nests; they look like little clay pots.

Not the most amazingly successful day, but still nice to get out and do things. The old house? church? other? was neat.

Manual labor

Before I even moved in here, one of the things highest on my list was a built in ironing board. We found a couple that just weren't right and we never found a place to put it and I gave up. I tried living with a little one that you sit on the counter but it was a fail. Then I bought a small apartment sized one and last week, one of the cats knocked it over and mayhem ensued.

Turns out what I really wanted was an always available ironing situation. In the condo, I had an ironing station always at the ready. I hate to iron so just walking up and turning on the iron, doing the deed and walking away was perfect and what I wanted here.

After the flying ironing board incident, I spied an option. My closet is huge by Closets I Have Had In The Past standards but it's also pretty full but there was a spot...

So I ordered this.

It arrived today. The instructions were not too specific and the bits were not totally labeled and so the project was a bit bigger than I expected but I managed it. (Thank you, me, for that more powerful cordless drill you finally bought not long ago. You rock.)

And now it has a home.

It came with a door but I thought that was unnecessary. I already ironed a shirt that got wadded up in the last laundry. Turned on the iron, rolled out the board, did the deed, rolled it back. Done. Easy peasy lemon squeezy.

And I'm quite delighted.

Manga (Anime) series info?

I'm writing a story where my main character stops his friend, a dad to a 13-ish year old boy, from purchasing some ~~anime~~ manga books because the main character knows the book series is too adult (sex, violence, both) for a 13 year old. The main character then recommends a different series because the story line is more appropriate for the age of the teen.

The story is the relationship between the main character and the dad, so this is a small piece of the larger story. But I know absolutely nothing about anime (or manga, obviously!) and would appreciate some recommendations of titles that would fit those categories.

Thanks!

ETA: I'm looking for currently available titles and perhaps where they are best purchased (a bookstore, a comic book store, a specialty shop, online?)

ETA2: I'm looking US-centric here.

Current Mood: drained

Entry tags:

school work

Speech: Humanitarian Rats

I may as well share this here.

( Humanitarian Rats )

( Works Cited )

one legged volleyball

Turns out my foot hurts far less than yesterday UNLESS I'm bouncing on it in the pool. And then, OMG! So I played with one leg and the ouchy foot tucked behind the good leg's knee. That was an experience. It's really hard and after 2 hours I think my back is going to be pissed tomorrow. But I was really surprised when I got out and started walking - it didn't really hurt at all. The 48 hours of pain expire in 4 hours. I'm counting.

And in other good volleyball news, the asshole is gone for a month. It was so lovely this morning without him. I'm going to enjoy July.

2025 is half done today.

AND today is the day I brought Biggie and The Smalls home from the shelter in 2019.

I got an interesting email from Gmail today. It said it was getting ready to close out an old email address of mine for lack of activity. So I thought I'd see if I could resurrect it. I have a giant fear of Google blocking my account. It happened once. I don't remember why. It was years ago and I finally managed to snag the helpful eye of a googler on Twitter who got me back on track. But, since then, I've lived with the fear. That first time, I was unable to come up with a former password or the date I opened the account which were two bits they wanted to prove I was me. Once I got back in, I captured that data and put it into an Outlook email account.

This morning I was interested in pulling the thread on this 'new' email account and seeing if I could get back in. It did ask for a former password and I typed one in that it did not reject. Then it wanted the email address I was using for backup. That took 2 tries. Then it wanted a phone number to text. But, once I got that far, it let me reset the password and BOOM I was in. Cool. Turned out I opened the account in 2005 and looks like I last touched it in 2006. And, shockingly, there were only 300 junk emails. So that now you can easily run multiple Gmail addresses in chrome, I think I'm going to start using it for storing misc bits.

So then I remembered I had not backed up the database that holds my notes. So I did that - which goes to email so then I decided to check and make sure it went to my backup email. All of the mail that comes into my main Gmail account automatically also gets sent to my backup account. So I went to Outlook and could not get in!! It let me reset my password but still would not let me in! so I noodled around a little and found a reddit thread about VPN which I do not use but it did lead me to try turning off wifi and using my cell data on my phone with a hot link to my Chromebook and BOOM! Microsoft is happy again. What a PIA. THEN I discovered remembered that because Microsoft is such a PIA, I had moved my backup email to me@susandennis.com which is over on my website hoster. So I go over there, log in and BOOM! There's all my email safely waiting for me and not connected to Google or Microsoft.

An interesting thread pulling for sure. But I do like that I finally got in everywhere and my stuff is safe.

All that thread pulling was time consuming. It's now 9:30 and I'm still in my robe from the pool. I need to make my daily run to UPS. I'd better get dressed first.

Entry tags:

Brian

BB—Brian—died.

Very suddenly.

I'm not distraught because honestly, I can't believe it. A world without Brian is absolutely unfathomable to me.

###

Brian was the only person I knew who liked to go tramping through the seemy, unraveling parts of cities as much as I do it. The science of Why is THIS here, doncha know. "Economic geography," we called it.

Once, trudging along the Greenpoint waterfront, we happened upon the Hafiz poem above, scribbled like graffiti on a broken tide break.

"That may be the most beautiful thing I've ever seen," Brian said.

Of course, it was. The Hafiz poem described Brian to a T. Brian's love hit the whole sky. Brilliant, hilarious, generous, stubborn, iconoclastic. A bon vivant. A teddy bear. He'd say he hated all religion, but that was not entirely true. I'd say he was very religious. His religion was kindness.

###

He was a regular reader of my online journal. The only one of my real-life friends who was. (I have become real-life friends with a lot of the people who read my journal, but they didn't start out as friends.)

Sometimes, he commented on my journal, but more frequently he texted me, often reprovingly: We were firmly in the Sibling Zone, bickered and made up regularly like brother and sister.

The woo-woo aspects of my personality drove him quite mad. He was not a fan of the woo-woo.

In particular, he hated my theory that humans more or less choose their reincarnations.

I don't doubt that you had memories of a past life, and have no facts upon which to base a doubt that you had such a life, he texted furiously.

But saying you chose this life is an assertion that stands apart from reincarnation itself. Nothing about reincarnation implies that you get choices. So far as I've heard from others on this topic, it's the choices you make in this life and other past lives that determine the next life.

You remembered vividly a life lived in the past. What I was asking is what if anything you remember about the choice you made to live this one.

So let me give you my motivation. I HATE AND ABOMINATE the assertion that people chose to be rounded up, stripped naked, starved and shoved into gas chambers

###

The last time we hung out—little over a week ago—we talked almost exclusively about death, which of course being me, I'm inclined to see as prophetic (except how scary would that be?)

"Don't you think I'd rather be an atheist?" I asked him. "I'd much rather be an atheist! It would be a much better fit with my personality! It is a total fucking drag every time I drop a quarter on the sidewalk to have to think, Now how does this teensy-tiny action fit into the Universal Plan? But I can't—"

"'Cause you buh-leeeve!" Brian sang.

"No, that's what's interesting. I don't believe. I have faith. Belief and faith are qualitatively different. And there's nothing I can do to shake my faith. Believe me, I have tried."

"Well, we could always arrange to have ICE kidnap you," Brian remarked cozily. "Maybe a little waterboarding? Put you right!"

Brian was a funny guy!

###

We actually had a date this coming Saturday: The Gardiner Cafe is hosting a storytelling open mike á la that NPR show The Moth, and we signed up for it.

Part of me thinks I ought to go. As a tribute to Brian.

Another part of me thinks I would stand up in front of that microphone & cry hysterically for five long minutes until they dragged me off the stage.

Of course, that might not be a bad thing.

I haven't cried yet.

###

Meanwhile, I'm noticing all sorts of spectral disturbances in recent photos I took of Brian.

Like in this photo, he has a halo:

And in this photo, he has angel wings:

Brian himself would have rolled his eyes & made gagging sounds if I'd ever pointed anything like that out.

Current Mood: tired
Current Location: Birthplace

Entry tags:

[personal]

Oh hey look it's not even 1

Actually succeeding in going to bed early!

I even did all the things on my to-do list today, which is pretty nice. :3 :3 :3

Current Mood: annoyed
Current Location: my apartment

Entry tags:

Writing Goals/Calendar: July 2025

I could probably make this a faster post by just copying and pasting last month's, ha.

It's now been half of a year of "not really writing much." It definitely feels really discouraging at this point, and frustrating, because just a few years ago I managed to write quite a lot... and just haven't been able to recapture either the interest/inspiration or the success at just pushing through and getting words on page.

June was a rough month, emotionally, and that didn't lend itself to a lot of desire to write.

My goals for June were:
- finish one more chapter of the iddy WIP (in order to decide whether I wanted to continue with it, or stick it on the back burner)
- outline the second iddy story, which had been the one I was most often thinking about and feeling inspired by
- continue the snowflake outline for the "Worldhopping Fairytale Monstrosity" fic
- think about the silly holiday AU fic, in the hopes of being able to actually have it completed by the holidays if I were to get going on it now

How did that go?
- I did not finish another chapter of the WIP, but I did get a couple thousand words written on it.
- I didn't outline the other story... and it's stopped being the thing my thoughts keep drifting to, so I'm afraid I lost my shot and harnessing the wave of inspiration. (Nothing has replaced it in my thoughts. Even when I'm trying, I can't really seem to focus on anything.)
- I did not work on the outline for the WFM fic.
- I didn't think about the silly holiday fic even once.

For the most part, I think I'll just shuffle most of the same goals forward into July.

Goals for July:
- Finish up the rest of this chapter of the iddy WIP. I want to reach the end of the chapter just to have a reasonable break point, but I think I will shelve the idea for a while after that. I haven't completely lost interest, but feel like I'm slogging through mud every time I try to work on it.
- I might still try to outline the other story, if only because I don't want to forget the ideas that I did have for it. (More than I possibly already have!) Unfortunately, it's no longer the "yay" feeling of excitement for the project, so it might also be immediately shelved.
- I do want to at least try to get a bit more of the WFM outline done. I have one more character to do "part 3" for, and it's stupid that I have spent months being stalled out on it.
- Holiday fic is getting punted forward... I don't think I could capture the lighthearted tone I want to for it right now.

Goals for August and beyond:
- Seriously, just find SOMETHING that I care about writing.
- Make some progress on the WFM outline.
- ???

Rereading this, it feels a lot more pessimistic than I was intending for it to be! I tend to try to keep stuff pretty positive, even when I'm not succeeding at getting the things I hoped for done. Unfortunately, part of the issue is just that I don't even especially want to be doing any of these things right now.
I'm used to feeling like I have things I want to be doing, but am failing to find the time and/or energy to pursue them. This time, I feel like I'm lacking the time, energy, and inspiration. (I'm coming up on a string of days off, and while we have plans for a lot of that time, to be honest, I don't even have the hypothetical desire to like, set a day of the time aside to write.)

So... is there a reason for me to push forward on any of this at all right now? Would it be better to just kind of let it all lay fallow for a bit? Maybe just focusing on media intake for a while would be a good idea. More reading, maybe even like... playing a video game for a while, which is something I haven't done at all this year, I don't think (minus the FFXIV playthrough with Taylor.) To be fair, I haven't been doing much writing at all, so it's not like this will free up vast quantities of time to put toward other things, but maybe if I'm not feeling bad about failing to write, I'll feel better about doing other things?

In light of that... Maybe I will still try to get the current WIP chapter done, just so I can put it away at a decent stopping point, and maybe finish out the third part of the snowflake outline, because that's really such a tiny commitment. After that I think I'll pause things until I feel a little more interested in something. (Or can at least see if a full, on-purpose break brings back that interest in any way!)

Cleanup Progress

Picture a two car carport with a fully enclosed room (my shop) at the end of it. The roof over the top of this building extends out toward the garden about 4 1/2 feet on the south side. The carport hasn't been used for cars for years, though I do park the Gator in it most of the time. These days there is a tarp across the south facing side of the carport (but not the shop) and another tarp that goes halfway across the east facing side of the carport. This keeps the carport fairly dry except in the most violent storms. I've struggled to keep things tidy, especially as more and more stuff arrives from San Francisco. Here is a picture of the garden path leading to the door of the shop.

( Read more... )

Drive bys

It is rare that I complain about cold - especially in Summer but... Our Safeway thinks it's in the center of the Arizona desert at noon. Holy fuck. I have heard enough TV weather people explain what happens when cold air hits hot to wonder why it's not pour rain at the Safeway door.

Turned in two shoe returns at UPS. Picked up a new pair from the Amazon lockers. They are too short. So my daily trips to UPS continue.

My cortisone foot is hard to walk on. I need it volleyball ready tomorrow. But, actually, I could play volleyball on one foot so no big deal.

My brother told me to watch Dept Q on Netflix. It was very good instruction. Great acting, great plot, good visuals and, honestly, I'm wallowing in this delicious Scottish accent.

I'm working on a test ghost to go with my pumpkin head guy for Halloween shelf giveaways.

(no subject)

We're headed off to Mystic tomorrow, to go to an anniversary celebration of Jaws, to see the beluga whales (to have complicated feelings about the ethics of aquariums), to sleep very late because there are no animals to wake me up. I'm mildly anxious, or at the very least, my nigh-permanent anxiety has decided to attach some of itself to this trip, and for all I tell myself overpacking for car trips is a perfectly legitimate way to self-soothe and make myself more comfortable going on trips, I judge myself every time I do.

I have a couple social outreaches pending, two I have to respond to (one to I, which is easy, one to a stranger I met at polyam speed dating, which is not) and two I need to decide if I want to reach out to again. There was one person from polyam speed dating I started to text with that I really liked but after initial contact, our attempts to schedule petered out on her end. maybe because she was trying to let me down easy, maybe because, as stated, she was swamped by helping out with a local pride weekend last weekend. There's a very cool-seeming (in a not-dating way) person on a local discord server, who expressed interest in hanging out, I proposed a couple times to and never heard back.

And maybe it's like how I sometimes go quiet because I don't actually want to talk to that specifically person, but it's so much more likely that I got overwhelmed by the world and my own fears and not wanting to talk to anyone, and then I can't reach out because I believe it's been too long, and I'm really grateful when the other person checks in.

I don't want to feel like I'm bothering anyone, ever, I try to read all the hidden cues, but I also am at least aware on an intellectual level that my traumas lead me to assume the worst of everyone all the time, and when I go looking for a hidden "go away" cue, I'm likely to make one up if I don't find one outright.

When Abundance asked me about going on dates as a result of going to speed dating, I kind of panicked, and firmly refuted the idea I wanted to date, declaring I was at capacity for the number of people I could model and adjust my wants to fit. I don't think I said it that way, I suspect it was something more obviously damaged, but while I remain quite lonely while polysaturated, I wonder if maybe I shouldn't pursue any kind friendships because I might not bring much to the table.

But I'm definitely not saying anything to anyone until we're back from vacation, so I guess we'll see how Monday me feels about all of this.

Current Mood: sleepy
Current Location: Birthplace

Entry tags:

Wednesday Did In Fact Happen

Not that I did HUGE amounts, but I did finally fucking shower, so there's that.

Sibling came over for a bit to bash nails back in - took way less time than expected, the floor really is in good condition.

Cats are both pretty snuggly at the moment, which is extremely nice. :3

Ouch!

My foot (the shot one) was fine until I stepped on it wrong this morning and now it is very ouchy BUT Dr. Google says this is totally normal and to be expected and should fade away in 48 hours. Meanwhile I should avoid strenuous exercise. Since I have approximately 76 years experience in avoiding strenuous exercise, I'm feeling that won't be an issue.

The laundry is laundrying.

When I finish this, I'm off to UPS to return two pairs of shoes. And then to Safeway for sour cream. And that is my entire to-do list for the day! Retirement rocks.

All my life I've had a large trash bin in the kitchen. So when I moved in here, I got a cheap plastic one and tucked it into a cabinet in the island. Last week, I realized I was running out of bags and thot, hmmm, is this the best solution? The trash shoot is less than 20 steps down the hall. Do I need to keep a dumpster in here? In internetted the shit out of the situation and decided to try a new scheme. I found a 2.5 gallon thing that clips over the cupboard door. (I found lots that clipped over the cupboard door but they were all tiny.) I took the gynormous one out and clipped on the littler one and I love it!!! It's so easy. And now everything goes in first off instead of accumulating on the island like it had been. Glorious little solutions.

The window shade guy says he needs to order new valence pieces and then his installer will come out and fix. No discussion about who pays. I think I know the answer but I'll be interested to hear if his guess is as good as mine. At least it will get fixed and better this time. Just this morning I looked up and saw this:

Not a huge deal but sloppy and easily seen from this table.

My mysterious Amazon package yesterday was drugs. I'd forgotten that I ordered refills. My toe drug arrives tomorrow but today I have new shoes coming.

I would be happy if rain would not wash out my baseball today. And percentages say it won't.

Ok. Time to hit the road (not vigorously - see paragraph above).

Entry tags:

Road Trip!

The reception was fun. And posh!!! Took place at the Dashings (not their real name) mega-ginormous Pennsylvania horse farm:

They'd pay someone $75,000 a year plus benefits just to mow all this, I thought. And the Dashings are only here one month out of the year now! Mostly they live in Santa Barbara these days.

The other guests were mostly people I'd known long ago and oh so far away when they were a lot unhappier and a lot more conflicted. But, of course, they'd had to be unhappy and conflicted then since they'd all been supporting players in the unhappy and conflicted Drama of Ben & Patrizia.

In this present tense, there was a strong sense that they were all actors at some kind of wrap party. They were all jovial and having a good time now.

People I didn't remember were positively overjoyed to see me.

Here's something I didn't remember:

Sixteen years ago, Lew got me a gig tutoring the Dashings' son, Tucker who did not know how to write a college essay & was on the verge of flunking his SATs. I tutored Tucker long distance via phone & email from the Squalid Cement Bungalow in Freeville, so I never actually met him or his parents in the flesh.

So at the reception, I am approached by a handsome young man in his early thirties who greets me by staring deep into my eyes and declaring, "You changed my life!!!"

"I did?" I said.

"Yes! And it's very rare to be able to identify the influence of a single person in those kinds of things, but without you, I would never have gotten into college. And college was the best thing that ever happened to me!"

It was Tucker.

Huh!

(That's Tucker on the right with mega-rich Pops)

I was also apparently the best dressed person there since various members of the catering staff kept scurrying up to me, trays of prosciutto-wrapped figs and steak crostini be damned, to exclaim, You! You look amazing!

It wasn't my clothes! I was wearing $20-dollar pants from Marshalls, an ancient bathing suit, an oversized man's white Oxford shirt, and a thrift-store leopard-spotted scarf:

So, I guess I've still got it. At least from a distance.

Excellent for my vanity!

###

The blessed couple were very sweet:

And very shy! They kissed behind Lew's baseball hat:

###

TSWSOITC and his wife stayed at the same hotel I did. They live in Georgia—Republic Of, not Last Train To—& I've always been rather fascinated by her since TSWSOITC disapproves of me, & yet I'd say Keti and I have more similarities than dissimilarities. (TSWSOITC saw me primarily as Ben's accomplice.)

I got to know her a little bit over the abysmal Comfort Inn coffee when she'd come out in the morning to smoke:

Keti is one of those women who is beautiful without being pretty. Very, very smart—an economist by training, speaks Georgian, Russian, Ukrainian, English, & French. Has lived through three civil wars. Very knowledgeable about what's really going on with the Ukraine War.

During the time I'd known him best, TSWSOITC was first married to Rachel and then—as a newly divorced man—the harbor master of Rockland, Maine. I'd begun writing a novel about him: The Harbor Master! As near as I can remember now, the plot had something to do with smuggled Ukrainian sex slaves! (Prophetic? Keti is Ukrainian.) I think I had a wee bit of a crush on TSWSOITC.

Anyway, this was my first time meeting Keti, and I found her very intriguing, and went about ingratiating myself to the best of my ability because I longed to be her BFF For-EVAH!!! Although, of course, I won't be.

###

And I see I am wayyyy over the writing time I alotted myself this morning! I have a busy schedule today. Nothing fun! All draggy, practical shit that must get done.

But I would be remiss not to mention:

• Day after the reception I met up with

egg_shell:

We had a fabulous time chatting & sauntering about Edinboro in the sweltering heat, but the real magic was when

egg_shell let me look at one of her art notebooks.

Now! I happen to think

egg_shell is an artistic genius. The creative impulse is very, very strong in her. And looking through her notebook, I got the same sense I got when I visited that barn in Vermont where all those fabulous Bread & Puppet Theater puppets are stored or when I saw Michaelangelo's Prisoners In Stone at the Accademia in Firenzi so very long ago—that I was viewing the creative source, the pure, untrammeled heart of the creative process.

The hackles on the back of my neck actually stood up while I flipped through her pages.

• In Ithaca, I stayed in the most enchantingly beautiful AirBnB:

• And RTT & I had a really, really good time hanging out together:

Snake

This week there was an enormous rattlesnake IN THE GARDEN. For TWO days. Chena alerted us to the snake by barking at the garden. Sadly we didn't quite understand, so it wasn't until Donald rustled around getting ready to sit down in a chair and I heard it rattle that we realized what was up. This is an old snake. They live up to 30 years so I'm pretty sure this snake has been around for years. It isn't aggressive despite the rattle we heard, it just wants to be left alone and will warn you away. Still, it has no business in the garden. I saw it the next day, under my Dahlia table, quietly hanging out. It was partially coiled up, perhaps because I'd just sprayed water down there? Later that day Chena woke up from a snooze in the driveway to bark at the woodshed. M and I could see the snake moving through some wood in front of the shed, apparently heading away from the garden and house. I'm really relieved that the dog will have NOTHING to do with the snake, and will alert us to it. As a result of this I'm in massive cleanup mode. No more snake habitat at the shop, or near the woodshed. It is going to be a long process. We have a big pickup load ready to go to the dump today.
In other news, I rode Firefly last night, bareback, in a halter with reins and she was really good. Better than with the bridle. She really hates the bit and is much better behaved with the halter.
Sent Donald off on the buss yesterday. Won't see him much for a while. We do have a lovely weekend in Santa Cruz planned for the end of July and I will need to go to SF for another load of stuff from the garage soon.

Entry tags:

June Book Roundup

Read

Activation Degradation by Marina J. Lostetter - excellent sci-fi book, some very fucked up stuff, very good. Library e-book
The Saint of Bright Doors by Vajra Chandrasekera - my god this book was incredible. wild. so vivid. just so good. the narrator was excellent as well. library audiobook
The Siren, the Song and the Spy by Maggie Tokuda-Hall - extremely interesting worldbuilding, neato plot, lots of queer people and mermaids. packs a lot into a novelette. library e-book
When Gods Die by C.S Harris - second in the series, decent murder mystery. physical library book
Greenteeth by Molly O'Neil - omg I loved this so much. the narrator was very good, there is epic quests and friendship and aaaaaa. library audiobook
Deadbeat Druid by David R. Slayton - it's really been too long since I read the first two in the series, so I didn't actually remember any of the plot. decent anyway. library e-book
To Shape A Dragon's Breath by Moniquill Blackgoose - holy shit you guys, this book was really good. very "this person stands up against the colonial power and succeeds" but it was really cool world building and very enjoyable to read. library e-book
The Incandescent by Emily Tesh - extremely extremely good. lots of british private school nonsense but that's easily skimmable. plot got extremely good. library e-book

Re-read

Uprooted by Naomi Novik - more intense than I remembered, very good. physical library book

DNF

Isabella Nagg and the Pot of Basil - clearly going for Pratchett style humor, not actually my jam and half of the jokes are in footnotes which don't work well on my phone to click. library e-book
The Secret Lives of Country Gentlemen by KJ Charles - not the author's fault, but I'm pretty sure the audiobook was being read by a computer. There were really weird pauses in the middle of sentences that shouldn't be there and I couldn't get through five minutes of it. Really weird. library audiobook

Current Mood: tired
Current Location: my apartment

Entry tags:

habit tracking

Habit Tracking: Week 25 (June 22 - June 28)

Denver Pride was this weekend, so went with a sticker from the museum that I got at a previous pride, since it has the skyline and all.

This was a good week. I'm happy with what I got done, including both reading and writing, as well as some other organizational stuff. We did things on my days off, and ending with an extra day off (even if it was the equivalent of taking a Thursday off for me, ha) to go to Pride was nice. I still have things that I need to catch up on, so will hopefully manage that next week, along with keeping on with the reading and writing. Looking forward to an upcoming string of days off.

Goals for the week:

I sort of caught up on DW, but not completely
I did finish reading Camp Damascus
I read Lost in the Moment and Found
We went to Pride on Saturday
We got some outside time
I did not update my reading page
I did not work on the snowflake outline
While I did not finish a chapter of the old WIP, I did get quite a bit done on it
I did set up my LibraryThing account (beyond just creating it)
I started reading Dead Silence

Tracked habits:

Work - 4/7, having taken Saturday off
Household Maintenance - 3/7
Physical Activity - 4/7
Wrote 500/1000+ Words - 2/7 - both over 1000 words
Wrote on 2nd+ Draft - 0/7
Meta Work - 6/7
Personal Writing - 4/7
Other Creative Things - 2/7
Reading - 7/7 - I finished Camp Damascus, read Lost in the Moment and Found, started Dead Silence, read some Duma Key with Alex.
Attention to Media - 7/7 - Sunday I had some youtube in the background at work, storm chasing later; Monday had something in the background; Tuesday and Wednesday listened to Re: Dracula and music; Thursday had some exploration and paranormal videos in the background and listened to music; Friday had storm chasing in the background; Saturday more storm chasing, including a very dramatic tornado.
Video Games - 0/7
Social Interaction - 7/7

Total words written: 2073 on WIP

Current Mood: frustrated

Entry tags:

battles with executive dysfunction

My speech will be on Apopo

Okay! Time to buckle down and write my informative speech outline!

(I am 100% going to talk to my Speech teacher about the possibility of getting an early start on our final speech, because this whole "Write a speech to present in one week" thing is just. No. No? No, thank you, I do not care for that.)

After that, I can get back to the important work of figuring out how to get characters in the correct position for a Sot 69 fic.

Well, that was interesting...

So. The foot guy was pretty hilarious. ZERO warm and friendly bedside manner. He was all about the solution and he got on it fast.

My left foot has gross thick toenails and peeling skin. Terbenafine. Take it for 90 days. The skin will clear up after 30. The nails will be better after 90 and back to their original shape and texture in six months. 85% chance it will clear everything up.

My right foot gets a sharp pain irregularly, across the toes and cramps up a lot. He had me point where the pain starts and then he put his thumb near the spot and pressed. HOLY FUCK! Ouch. Then he pressed a couple more places. Not quite as ouch. Pinched nerve. Two cortisone shots. One now and one in August cause he's going on a motorcycle tour of the southwest for the rest of July. 75% chance it will make the pain go away completely. (I've had this pain for years and years and if this actually does fix it, I'm going to apply for some of those years to be returned to me.)

Wild. I assumed he was going to tell me to change shoes, wear inserts. Never go barefoot. Always do this, never do that. But, nope. I did take all my shoes with me. He barely looked at them and would not at all had I not asked him. He gave me the names and model numbers of 3 kinds of shoes to get if I wanted to be comfortable walking. And he told me that the inserts I'm wearing in my shoes right now are the best and the only ones I should ever use.

And that was it. The end. of him until August.

I had to go down and give blood to get a liver test which he assumed would not point out any issues so he went ahead and sent the prescription to the pharmacy. Including the blood test, I was on the road back home at 1:24. My appointment was 1.

I feel like I got more than my $30 (co pay) worth.

I had ordered 3 pair of shoes but all 3 now get returned. One, however, is a keeper but I need a longer size. I did all the online return bit. They all go to the same place - UPS. I'll take them in the morning.

It is hotter than a fire cracker out there. I'm in the elbow now waiting for my house cleaner to finish. It's pretty warm in here but she's about done and I can go home where it is very cool.

(no subject)

Be inspired, omnia, try to post in July. Not full "since last we saw our antiheroine" updates, not deathless prose, just posting.

Once upon a time someone "installed" a bank of three kitchen cabinets above, a section of countertop, and three cabinets below in our basement. (as if someone had taken a five foot long chunk out an existing kitchen, ceiling to floor and then precariously screwed it onto a couple of 2x4s that I don't even understand how they are attached to the unfinished basement wall.)

We've lived here since 2019 and I've always hoped to take them down and replace them with something a little less tragic and a little more useful. Clearly, because I'm telling you this story now I haven't. But, after first discovering I was emotionally labile enough to cry over drill-confusion, I have now removed at least everything we've abandoned into the cabinets, and taken down the upper half. While i have and had many hopes/plans, apparently none of them addressed what am I going to do with the spiky nail ridden tetanus cabinet traps after they're not attached to the wall. I know sometimes to make something tidier you have to make it messier, but also the garage has lost the minimal amount of cool it's mostly-undergroundness lends in the morning and I am dizzy, so I'm just walking away from the disaster, pretending I'll deal with a little more of it tomorrow, and then going on vacation until the following Monday. Future me's problem, I guess?

I made a card for Spark, who is away at camp, to their specifications. Is it important for a 7yo to know that an adult human is shit at crafts and still makes them? Possibly. Is she discerning of the quality of my crafting or going to pay more than minimal attention to the card I send? Probably not. Is it hard to step away and just send it and not try at least two more times? Definitely.