The main thing on my mind this week is, of course, work. Thursday was my last day at the old job and Monday will be the first day of the new job. The new job sent me a computer days before my start date, which might not sound that exciting but I’ve had some jobs where it took a whole week to get any equipment, so I think this is a good start.
Books and Other Words
A Passage of Stars
I recently finished A Passage of Stars by Kate Elliott. It was good but I didn’t like is as much as some of her other books. Still, I’ve started the next book in the series so I clearly liked it enough. I thought the world and characters were interesting but the plot went in an unexpected direction. Girl leaves home and ends up being a revolutionary: a tale as old as time?
All the King’s Women: The Fats via Fantasy Magazine. I have never liked Stephen King and here’s someone defining part of the problem.
The Brilliance of Charo via The New York Times. Everyone else has already shared this because it’s great but I want to share it too.
Rampant Consumerism
Last Sunday, I cleared out my closet of everything that doesn’t fit or that I don’t like to wear and now I feel like I have no clothes. The fact is I still have the same amount of clothes that I can wear but it feels shitty getting rid of a bunch of clothes that I spent money on and got minimal use from. I am caught in a loop where I realize I have nothing to wear for whatever it is I’m doing, buy clothes in a panic, then the clothes only kind of fit (if at all) or I don’t like the style and now I’m stuck with a closet full of stuff I don’t want because it’s so hard to find plus-size clothes, let alone clothes that align with my sense of style and comfort. I’ve decided to slowly buy nice clothes I really like, that fit well, and, ideally, are from more sustainable companies. This probably sounds really basic if you’re a thin person but it’s a big deal for me.
Cat Therapy
It’s a short post today, but here are some cat photos for your nerves.
This week the big news is I accepted an offer for a new job! It feels like I just did this because I’ve only been in my current job for five months. It’s been a bit of a whirlwind of a week because I interviewed on Tuesday, on Wednesday they asked me to formally submit an application (since I had only interviewed based on the recruiter finding me) and they sent me information about the benefits they offer, then they sent me the official offer on Thursday.
The new gig is pretty similar to the current one and it’s another contract for a government healthcare program, which is good. I want to do a job that is actually accomplishing something worthwhile for society, even if just a little. The position is a senior technical writer and I’m getting a solid pay increase so I’m feeling good. Plus, I get to get away from my manager who definitely does not know what he’s doing and doesn’t seem to understand that you have to ask more than yes or no questions if you want to understand your employees. He told me he was surprised to hear I was leaving. Well, yeah, that’s what happens if you never talk to someone for more than five minutes at a time.
The new company asked me to start on April 4, which, you may note, is quite soon. I put in my resignation on Thursday afternoon and gave them one week’s notice. At-will employment works both ways!
Consuming
Here are some things I’ve recently read, watched, or bought.
Books and Other Words
I read half of a book this week. That’s not much but it’s better than what I’ve been doing so I’ll take it.
When NFTs came to roller derby, roller derby put up a fight via Vox Recode. I watched this roller derby NFT debacle play out in real time on social media. I’m impressed that derby drama is making waves on the internet but I thought the tone of the article was giving “these ungrateful derby people don’t know what we’re doing for them!” I don’t think Lady Trample, et al. have ever written a business case (the article says the NFT offering was ostensibly a fundraiser, which … lol) and they just thought they could show up, capitalize on their popularity, and sell NFTs. Wild.
Hannah Gadsby on her autism diagnosis: ‘I’ve always been plagued by a sense that I was a little out of whack’ via The Guardian. I relate deeply to this piece by Gadsby as a fellow autistic woman who wasn’t diagnosed until adulthood. This line really got me, “I used to fret about fitting in at school, not because I wanted to, but because I knew I was supposed to. I was at my happiest in my own company, which I took to be an abnormality.” Oof. I put her book on hold at the library as soon as I finished this article.
I was forced to buy a new hammock thanks to the destructive behavior of the squirrels that frequent our backyard. Over the winter, they took to gnawing my hammock and scavenging its fibers. This, unfortunately, made the hammock useless to me and I had to buy a new one. I’ve sprayed this one with a squirrel repellent (apparently they hate peppermint. Unfortunately, so do I). It’s working so far but if these damn squirrels rob me of one of my few joys I will go on a rampage.
Making Things and Doing stuff
There are some things I’ve made and stuff I’ve done.
Moving It
garage gym phase 1
We finally have a little garage gym set up! We’ve been gradually cleaning and making space for this. I finally bought some floor mats (and discovered I will need more of them) and we got it set up. I’ve been deliberately under-estimating what I think I can lift since I haven’t lifted anything for a while and to help me build up the habit of lifting again. We also don’t have that many plates so, frankly, I couldn’t go crazy even if I wanted to. But I’m happy about being able to lift weights again. The next phase is going to be to get a squat rack because right now, I can only squat the weight if I can also clean it, which will eventually be limiting.
Kitchen Witchery
I got in a couple of new recipes this week, which I always enjoy. For dinner tonight I made Alba’s tagliatelle with ragu from the Pasta Grannies cookbook. I’ve discovered that pasta isn’t that hard to make but still it seems like a minor miracle when it works out. I also tried a yeasted cake recipe from the Nordic Baking Book. It’s called brunviger. Before baking, the instructions call for dimpling the cake like you would a foccacia then topping it with a cinnamon and brown-sugar mixture. It’s delicious. It’s something about halfway between a coffee cake and cinnamon rolls.
Tagliatelle with ragubrunsviger cake
Cat Therapy
This week Fritz turned one! He’s been alive for a whole year and is technically not a baby anymore (he’s still totally a baby though).
Finally, here are some cat photos for your nerves.
I’ve been feeling like I’m in a rut lately with pandemic/pretending-there’s-no-pandemic life chugging along as it does. I’m existentially fatigued from work and the pressure of knowing I just have to keep showing up to work for another 30 years (which, seriously ??????). Work continues to be extremely stupid (we are keeping the details light here on the blog just in case) but I do have some promising leads on new jobs and I hope I get one and I hope it’s not stupid so I can stop feeling so much angst about it.
This weekend has actually been really great for getting out of the rut. Friday night we went out to the bay area to meet my one remaining friend from the short, fraught period of my life when I was a student at Brigham Young University. We got some Korean barbecue then went out to a fire poi/other fire objects hangout in a park because my friend Kael is big into it. I was lightly into it many years ago so, yes, I did spin a little fire poi and no I don’t have any photos at this time. Doing a big, hippie park hangout is not my scene these days but it was still good to go out and do something different and watch people play with fire. This was also a super rare weekend in which I went out two nights in a row. Last night I went to the Sacramento Ballet and that was cool too. I don’t want to do this much every weekend, but it’s nice to have a break in the monotony and see some friends. It will also make me appreciate being inside for a little while.
Consuming
Here are some things I’ve recently read, watched, or bought.
Books and Other Words
Deep Space Nine: Hollow Men
I can’t believe I went a whole month without getting through a book, but I finally finished something this week. I read my first Star Trek novel: Deep Space Nine: Hollow Men by Una McCormack. I don’t remember how I got there, but I started following a Star Trek-themed account on instagram and that account started a book club. I didn’t join the club but I read the book they chose on my own. I thought it was good but it took me a little while to get into the story. A lot of the fun of reading is imagining the world and the characters but, in this case, I can perfectly picture the characters and exactly how they would say things because I’ve watched Deep Space Nine. So, it was cool but it was also not as exciting as reading something unknown.
TV and Music
It’s been big Star Trek energy here since we’ve also been watching both the new Trek shows: Discovery and Picard. I have no smart thoughts about them other than they are good and it’s nice to have new Star Trek. We are also looking forward to Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, which is coming out sometime this year and is a prequel to the original series.
found on @spockxkirk on instagram
Rampant Consumerism
To mark that first, horrible Monday after daylight saving time starts when we all have to get up an hour early for work, my friends held a little eat-cake-and-chat session on zoom. It was great and we were forced to wonder why we hadn’t been doing this all along. I had been wanting to try a cake from Milk Bar and this seemed like the right occasion to do it. It was a tasty, respectable cake, but not the greatest ever. It’s very sweet, which is not a problem for me, but there was no counterpoint to the mega-sweetness. Maybe I should start a youtube channel to review cakes.
Making Things and Doing stuff
Last night we went to the Sacramento ballet. This is the second show that we get with the season tickets we bought. It’s also only the second ballet I’ve seen; the first was the Nutcracker. This was a modern performance and very different from the high-drama of the Nutcracker. It is much harder to know what the “story” is for an unfamiliar piece, especially in comparison to something that has absolutely pervaded pop culture. However, I did really enjoy it. It’s cool to see what ballet can really look like, beyond the small stuff we do in my class. It was also delightful to go somewhere with people and get some novel stimulation.
doing some cultureballet with the homies
Languages
My Spanish test is two months away and my brain is already producing stress dreams about it (thanks!). A few nights ago I dreamed that I didn’t realize the test was that day and then I couldn’t find the piece of paper or email I needed to get in. Obviously this is an anxiety dream based on real-life events. Since I’ve been feeling a little more alive this week, I have been getting into a new textbook to help me focus and feel ready for the test. Ironically, I feel less ready than I did back in November. I’m sure this is just anxiety but I don’t feel like I’ve been studying enough. Although I always feel like I’m not studying enough so I’m probably wrong.
Moving It
My roller derby team is planning to have practices again and I am now confronted with whether I actually want to keep playing in the near future or at all. I’m feeling conflicted about it because it turns out I like team sport (surprise), it’s good exercise, and I’ve made a lot of friends there. However, the pandemic is still very much a thing, I’m enjoying my new hobby (dance!), derby is very hard on the body, and I’ve learned that it’s difficult for me to be involved in roller derby without trying to do too much. I’ve decided that I’m definitely not going to start up again until after I take my Spanish test in May, since I’m already stressed enough. Part of the difficulty of this decision is that derby did really become part of my identity and it feels cool to be a roller derby person. If I’m honest with myself, I don’t think I want to keep playing (though I at least want to keep announcing at games). I haven’t played for two years after all thanks to the pandemic, but it’s a whole process of working through those feelings. And feelings are so dumb.
Kitchen Witchery
I am still taking it somewhat easy in the kitchen lately but I have to share these perfect rolls. You may not like it, but this is what peak performance looks like.
perfect rolls
Cat Therapy
We took Fritz to the vet this week—don’t worry, he’s fine. He was having (gross stuff warning!) some blood in his poop but, of course, the problem resolved itself by the time we went to the vet. The good news is we’re now certain he’s free of parasites and the vet said he’s very healthy. We also learned that he now weighs over 10 pounds! Fritz did really well riding in the car and Kirk decided we should go through the Taco Bell drive through just to see how Fritz behaved (Fritz didn’t order anything and didn’t do anything nuts like try to leap through the drive-through window). Will Fritz go on more car rides? We shall see.
Finally, here are some cat photos for your nerves.
bridge catto be a cat in the sunguest bed turned cat bed
The last month passed in something of a fugue state. I didn’t want to do anything or look at anything and that included writing on this blog. A few things were getting me down. Vision therapy has become more difficult. My therapist said we’re reaching the part of therapy in which we have to get my eyes to start working together. You may recall that eyes not cooperating is the entire crux of the problem so this has all been very tiring. I’ve been very gradually learning to cross my eyes which is, surprisingly, an essential skill. I’ve also been dealing with more TMJ pain lately. I realized that the headset I use for meetings was pressing directly on the TMJ and causing me extra pain—not to mention the existential pain of being in meetings. To top things off, we’re now observing the pandemic’s second anniversary and World War III is ramping up.
TMJ pain but make it fashion
Despite these woes, I am here today. The last week, I’ve come back into myself. Perhaps because the days are lengthening? Because I bought new in-ear headphones that don’t aggravate my TMJ pain? Because my boss’s boss acknowledged that my boss, let’s say, leaves some things to be desired? It’s probably a little of everything but I am glad to have a little more energy and be back to writing my blog and doing my usual stuff.
Consuming
Here are some things I’ve recently read, watched, or bought.
Books and Other Words
Given the aforementioned vision stress, I’ve barely been reading. Between work and therapy activities, I don’t have a lot of visual energy remaining for books. This sucks because I, clearly, love to read. In any case, the last book I read was You Sexy Thing by Cat Rambo. It’s a fun science-fiction tale in an emerging genre that I am thinking of as “cozy sci-fi.” The story follows a group of varies alien species gathered into a found family. They take in a stray, they go on an adventure. It’s a very enjoyable read that I couldn’t help but compare to The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet. This isn’t a bad thing. I could read 100 novels like this and probably not get tired of it. I think these cozy stories are filling in something we don’t have a lot of right now. Life feels so chaotic and unstable. It’s nice to read a story where the characters are open and accepting and just want to do their thing. Part of the draw, too, is imagining a future in which humanity has survived whatever the hell is happening at present and gone on to join the rest of civilization in the stars. It’s a little optimism, as a treat.
I was looking at what links I’d saved for my “meanwhile on the internet” section and realized I saved almost nothing. Instead of reading the internet lately, I’ve been playing Guild Wars 2 with Kirk. The game recently published an expansion so we’ve been playing more. However, Kirk plays more than I do so he already has some of the fun new stuff in the game like a boat and a turtle-tank. He escorts me around the map, which is, frankly, the level of respect I deserve.
GW2 boat service
TV and Music
I’m still having fun exploring new (to me) music and I bought a few albums recently including Neyslutrans by Hatari. This band was Iceland’s representative at Eurovision a few years ago, although they are not the usual Eurovision sound. Actually they’re not even my usual sound but I like them even if they are kind of shout-y. The music is good and it’s in Icelandic. In a completely different genre, I bought an album from a band called Tomato Flower. It’s a very short, pleasant set of songs that I’m enjoying.
Rampant Consumerism
I have long resisted in-ear headphones, but I realized I had to get over it because my eyes were watering when I was in meetings from over-ear headphone pain. And meetings are bad enough already. I bought these Sennheiser earbuds, which I actually like. In-ear headphone technology has advanced significantly since I last tried putting headphones in my ears.
Making Things and Doing stuff
There are some things I’ve made and stuff I’ve done.
Moving It
The worst news of the year so far is that the spring dance recital is going to be in an actual theater and it’s on the same Saturday that I’ll be in Seattle trying to take the C1 DELE test (my Spanish exam) again. I am really sad that I’ll miss the recital and I’m mad that this could have been avoided if my previous attempt at taking the test hadn’t gotten fucked up. The good news is that 95 percent of a dance recital is practicing in class, so in a way I’m not missing much. I’m still sad though.
Kitchen Witchery
I haven’t been getting too crazy in the kitchen lately. I’ve been getting better at keeping track of what meals were good and relatively easy so I can add them to my rotation (thanks to the power of spreadsheets). That said, I’ll never stop trying new things. I made scones (the recipe from The Bread Bible) for the first time and that was fun. There’s a lot of folding involved, but that wasn’t so bad. I made an almond and poppy seed scone because I rejected the recipe’s recommendation of currants (gross) and lemon poppy seed (fine but almond sounded better). I tried out another recipe from Feast of the Islamic World with ful medames, which is basically a fava bean dip. It was good but I think it would be better with feta cheese. I’m also considering frying the leftovers into felafel-like balls and eating them that way because there’s only so much bean I want to dip. Finally, I’ve developed a great appreciation for cookies made with seasonal M&M colors. I don’t know why they taste better but they do so here I am.
poppy seed sconesseasonal M&M cookiesful medames and pita
Cat Therapy
Finally, here are some cat photos for your nerves.
Fritz suspicious of waterHuey mad about the lack of shower waterHuey the sun-chaserlöng boy
I was very close to not writing this today because this was another week that passed in a bit of a haze. However, that’s probably all the more reason to write, to differentiate the days and the weeks. I’m still annoyed at work and a little annoyed at my body (vision therapy is vexing me with lots of 3D activities and I’m struggling). Yet, the week wasn’t a total loss.
Consuming
Here are some things I’ve recently read, watched, or bought.
Books and Other Words
This week I read She Who Became the Sun by Shelley Parker-Chan and Mother of Invention: How Good Ideas Get Ignored in an Economy Built for Men by Katerine Marçal. They were both good! She Who Became the Sun is a light-fantasy, historical fiction about a girl in 14th century China. She is disgusted with her supposed fate (“nothing”) and seizes the opportunity to be more. There’s intrigue, army stuff, and lesbians. Mother of Invention is a non-fiction book that was better than I expected. It starts with the history of the wheeled suitcase and describes the resistance to it—rolling one’s suitcase was unmanly, obviously. I thought the rest of the book would be fun/annoying tales of useful things men resisted, but the book is wide-ranging and thoughtful, taking the reader all the way from the wheeled suitcase to climate change, with stops on disability and witchcraft in between. The only thing I didn’t love about the book is an aspect of the writing style, which probably comes from a journalism perspective, in which the author includes pithy, one-sentences paragraphs every couple pages to drive home a point. I think it’s effective in a shorter work but I found it tiring in this case.
She Who Became the SunMother of Invention
Meanwhile, on the internet:
TikTok is enabling predatory ADHD advertisers to target young users via Media Matters. This article caught my attention because I, too, have been getting a lot of ads for ADHD assessments lately. Some companies are overgeneralizing ADHD symptoms and running ads as an attempt to sell more prescription drugs. This is fucked up.
Last week I wrote about ending my Spotify subscription. This week, I had a lot of fun actually discovering and listening to music. For the first time in a while, I feel connected to what I like to listen to. I didn’t realize I had completely given up in the face of Spotify’s algorithm. I started using bandcamp this week to find cool music. I really like the way they set up their app. In the evening, Fritz always wants me to throw toys for him so I’ve taken to listening to new stuff while I entertain him every day. I enjoyed and purchased the album Laurel Hell by Mitski, who is a new-to-me artist. The other album I bought this week was No Es Pecado by Alaska y Dinarama. I heard about this band by watching Drag Race España. While on original-flavor Drag Race, RuPaul ends every show by saying “If you can’t love yourself, how the hell are you gonna love somebody else. Can I get an ‘amen’?,” the Drag Race España host quotes an Alska y Dinarama song and says, “Soy así y así seguiré. Nunca cambiaré!” (“This is how I am, this is how I’ll stay. I’ll never change!” In short, being gay is not a phase, mom). Once I realized it was from a song, I tracked it down and loved it. It’s got a new wave sound and it’s in Spanish, so I’m down.
Making Things and Doing stuff
There are some things I’ve made and stuff I’ve done.
Languages
Yesterday I asked my Icelandic teacher if we could work on some more conversation practice in anticipation of my trip to Iceland. He said yes, but I have to prepare for it. I need a topic ready and I should figure out some key words in advance. I’m starting to appreciate into this type of learning. I’ve been doing something similar with my Spanish class where I sometimes write about or prepare a short presentation on whatever random subject has recently moved me. It’s definitely a different approach than what we get in school but it’s a lot more fun. I’m excited to try to think of some good topics of Icelandic conversation for my intermediate level. If you have a suggestion, let me know!
Kitchen Witchery
butternut squash pasta with almond and apricot topping
Last week I said I would make the butternut squash pasta from the Grist cookbook and I did. I liked pasta with butternut squash, but I wasn’t loving the topping. I thought it was good with the paprika oil I had leftover from another Grist recipe. Considering how great everything else I’ve made has turned out, I’m not even mad at this one.
Cat Therapy
Finally, here are some cat photos for your nerves. Some of you ask me “where are the Huey pictures?” and I have to tell you that there aren’t a lot of great Huey photos because she’s always doing un-glamorous shit like lapping up leftover shower water or spending her time sleeping. Sleeping is cute, you might say. It is, but she’s a mostly black cat who mostly sleeps on top of a black pillow. There’s nothing wrong with any of this, but it doesn’t work well for a visual medium. So this is the photo you get of Huey today.
ready for work with FritzFritz being a glamor-pussHuey drinking shower water
Last week was one that passed in a blur. I don’t really know where the time went, but it is now gone. I was forced to spend part of the week being annoyed about work (above the normal annoyance of simply working). My new boss this week effectively announced to the group that he intends to micromanage us so that’s … fun. He also told me he doesn’t know what I do so he wants to be in whatever training I do for our new editor. I’m having PTSD flashbacks to my last job. I feel like I can’t catch a break.
Consuming
Here are some things I’ve recently read, watched, or bought.
Books and Other Words
I’m in the middle of several books (books that need to go back to the library soon), but I didn’t finish any this week. So please enjoy some internet readings instead.
Dividing up the autism spectrum will not end the way you think via The Nation. Some people want to separate out groups of autistic people based on what kind of symptoms they present and supports they need. I’ve always been a little uncomfortable with the “high-functioning” autism label. We all have different needs and experiences and this article makes a good case for why dividing the community is a fool’s errand.
This week, like a number of people I expect, I stopped paying for Spotify premium. I’d been somewhat aware that artists are not well compensated for the music people listen to on Spotify but the controversy with Joe Rogan this week really shed some light on that subject. The people who make music are getting paid between $0.0033 and $0.0054 for each song that people play. Spotify is pocketing a lot of the difference and doing things like paying noted racist and covid misinformation monger Joe Rogan hundreds of thousands of dollars. I’m not thrilled with my money helping to fund that.
I’d been thinking for a little while about how I can actually listen to music and not just let Spotify take me on a passive journey. I was recently lamenting to a friend that I used to know everything in my library and now I have no idea what I’ve listened to. So, after I cancelled Spotify, I put all my mp3s on my phone so I can actually listen to them (I forgot I had a huge SD card in there. Whoops). I downloaded VLC for Android to play my music. I decided that, instead of giving Spotify my money, I’m going to buy a few albums per month from an actual music store. I bought a few this week from 7digital to fill in some music I know I was listening to often on Spotify but didn’t have in my own library. To listen to my podcasts, I downloaded the BeyondPod app, which I am liking so far.
What’s hard about divesting from Spotify—or quitting facebook—for example, is that it’s a lot of effort. It definitely takes more work to think about what music I want to buy, go buy it, transfer it to my phone, find a new app to play it on. It’s more work to reach out to individual friends and cultivate relationships outside of facebook than to just click “like” on friends’ posts. These apps offer us convenience but are not actually making our lives better. I know I’m not even close to the first to make that observation, but I’m feeling it acutely as I try to find ways to relate to the world—art, friends—in a more thoughtful way. Part of the issue is certainly that modern life already takes a lot of time and energy. It’s hard to work 40+ hours a week in a job that makes you feel shitty. Then you have to do your laundry and buy groceries, do your stupid little tasks for your stupid mental health. So yes, it does seem great to outsource some labor to social media. I don’t have an answer. I can only say that I’m in there too.
Making Things and Doing stuff
There are some things I’ve made and stuff I’ve done.
Knitting and Crafts
sweater in progress: back
I thought I would share some knitting progress after being in a bit of a slump. This sweater is a lot of fun to knit and it’s shaping up great. It’s knitted in pieces and this is the back. It’s almost finished! The magic of knitting with bulky weight yarn!
Kitchen Witchery
I’m still all about the Grist cookbook; I made two recipes from it this week. First, I tried the butternut squash risotto, topped with paprika oil and arugula. Normally, I’m not a big fan of throwing a big pile of leaves on top of a warm food, but I actually liked it a lot. I served it with these baked chicken thighs with butter and onions to round out the meal. Next I made the smashed garlic chickpeas, following the variation that called for a Moroccan-ish almond and apricot topping and served with roasted carrots and broccoli. I also made some couscous since we had it on hand and it fit the theme. Because this is a Grist fan account now, I’ll add that I’m planning to make a recipe from it tonight. It’s a butternut squash pasta which will use up my leftover squash and leftover almond-apricot topping. This is what passes for excitement for me.
butternut squash risotto topped with paprika oil and arugula, and a baked chicken thighsmashed garlic chickpeas from Grist
I’ve been baking a lot this week too, starting with the orange poppy seed Snacking Cake. We have an orange tree in the yard and, although I’m not a great fan of oranges, I’ve been trying to find uses for them. I was surprised that I liked this cake a lot since I’m not a big fruit person. I made two recipes from 100 Cookies, which is also becoming a favorite cookbook. I tried the cinnamon bun blondies, which conveniently helped me use up the rest of my cream cheese and all the leftover egg yolks from when I made the meringue-topped carrot cake bars. I also made these very festive neopolitan cookies, which were not as hard as I thought they might be. It’s sugar cookie dough divided into three pieces. One part is mixed with chocolate, one with pulverized freeze-dried strawberries with another, and third is plain. You take a bit of each and roll it together for each cookie. It takes a little time but it was fun.
orange poppy seed cake with raspberry glazecinnamon bun blondiesneopolitan cookies
Cat Therapy
Finally, here is a cat photo for your nerves. I don’t make him sit this way, he does it to himself.
This week, as I reflected on the fact that we’re staring down year three of the pandemic, I snapped and decided we need a garage gym. I’d been thinking about it pre-pandemic but Kirk talked me down since there’s a gym in our neighborhood. I have no idea when I’ll actually feel comfortable in a gym again but I really miss lifting heavy weights. So on Friday evening I took to craigstlist in search of some deals and, surprisingly, found one right away. I’m now the proud owner of a bar, set of plates, and a weight stand that I paid $560 for. I was surprised that all the weights were new in boxes when I went to pick them up. I had assumed they were used. I don’t know what kind of business is selling new weights on the cheap from a middle-aged man’s minivan, but okay. I’m happy to benefit. It will probably be a little while before we’re really set up for all manner of lifting. We cleaned and organized the garage yesterday, but we’re not ready to buy a squat rack or anything yet. I’m thinking I’ll buy a mat for the floor so I can at least get some deadlifts in, then we can go from there.
Consuming
Here are some things I’ve recently read, watched, or bought.
Books and Other Words
I finished two books this week: Payback’s a Witch and Pagans: The End of Traditional Religion and the Rise of Christianity. Payback’s a Witch was a lot of fun. It’s a lesbian witch romance, which is basically catnip for me. It did have kind of a weird tone, vacillating between fancy-formal witchy speech while also using colloquialisms like “dead-ass.” However, that didn’t make me enjoy it any less. As for this week’s non-fiction pick, I saw “PAGANS” in the title and was like, yeah, fuck me up with some pagans. I was a few chapters in before I realized the truth, that it was really a history of Christianity book. It was still good, and I did learn about how the concept of paganism only exists to define an opposition to Christianity (of course). Ancient peoples didn’t think of themselves as religious or pagan or anything. They just lived and paid their respects to the gods. The emergence of Christianity changed that.
Payback’s a WitchPagans: The End of Traditional Religion and the Rise of Christianity
Meanwhile, on the internet:
Are you free, or are you just meeting expectations via Ijeoma Oluo: Beyond the Book. A lovely essay on plus-size clothing and the expectations society has of fat women. From the article: “When we dress how we want and signal that we want to move through the world as we want, we signal that we feel we are deserving of an autonomy that the rest of the world feels that we haven’t earned. And that threatens the idea that autonomy is something to be earned at all.”
What if we just stopped being so available? via The Atlantic. On norms around how fast we expect a response and no longer being “Sorry for my delay.” This is the kind of stuff I’ve been thinking about a lot lately and why I’ve started writing letters this year.
TV and Music
I watched Encanto and I thought it was cute. Luisa is goals, obviously. We also watched Star Trek: Insurrections. I found it surprisingly funny. Star Trek is often unintentionally funny but not as often funny on purpose and I thought this one had a lot of comical moments built in. Now I’m only one movie away from having seen all the Star Treks, and I’m proud of this achievement.
Rampant Consumerism
I bought this ergonomic mouse for my work computer and I love it. I love it so much that I think I need to buy another one for my personal computer. It hadn’t occurred to me that a mouse could be so much more comfortable, but it is.
Making Things and Doing stuff
There are some things I’ve made and stuff I’ve done.
Moving It
I noticed this week that I’m finally starting to internalize some of the steps I’ve been learning in tap dance, like the time step. Tap is turning out to be one of those things that takes a while to settle into my brain, but once I get it, I totally have it. Tap class, more than my other dance classes, has also been kicking my ass. I was so sore from it this week. Which probably shouldn’t be surprising since it’s basically a whole hour of bouncing up and down.
Kitchen Witchery
I made a few new recipes last Sunday: the black bean potlicker soup from Grist, southwestern corn spoonbread from The Baking Bible, and a carrot cake with cream cheese frosting and meringue topping from 100 Cookies. I forgot to take nice photos before we ate so you get this weird ones instead. Everything was really good. Kirk is not a big cornbread fan but he liked the spoonbread because it’s full of tasty stuff and not too bread-some. The cake came out great but I really struggle with using a piping bag. The recipe directed me to pipe meringue kisses all over the cake and I tried but I just ended up with meringue everywhere. Maybe one day I will learn these secrets.
black bean and sweet potato soupsouthwestern corn spoonbreadcarrot cake with cream cheese frosting and meringue topping
Cat Therapy
Finally, here are some cat photos for your nerves.
Huey loungingFritz being unbearably cute againCute baby
Last week I decided not to write a post because I was worried I had covid. I won’t bury the lede: I don’t have covid. But it was all I could think about and I didn’t want to write about it without knowing one way or the other. Someone in my dance class turned out to have covid and I was worried that I’d been exposed. I spent the better part of a week being tired and feeling like I was getting sick but not actually getting sick. This is the magic of anxiety. Last week, I went to a county testing site to get a PCR test and had to wait in line for an hour. It took another five days to get the results, but I am, indeed, covid free, so I’m not complaining. The good thing is I took two days off work to rest and lounge and I definitely don’t regret that.
I mentioned in a previous post that work was going to suck again and it kind of is. My supervisor and my fellow editor have gone on to other jobs. I’ve been in this job for three months and the two managers above me have left since I started. I weathered everyone being on maternity leave only to be pretty much by myself again. I am not having a great time. The work itself is fine but I really can’t handle this level of chaos.
In better news you can now subscribe to my blog! Go to the subscribe tab at the top of the page and fill in your email address. You’ll get new posts emailed to you when I publish them.
Consuming
Here are some things I’ve recently read, watched, or bought.
Books and Other Words
I finished reading The Warrior Moon, which is the last book in the K. Arsenault Rivera trilogy that I’ve been reading. I really liked it overall. The world was interesting, the characters were rich and flawed and the story was compelling.
I also read Out of Office: The Big Problem and Bigger Promise of Working from Home by Charlie Warzel and Anne Helen Petersen. The premise is that the pandemic is an opportunity for us to rethink how 40 percent of the country’s workers, workers in the “knowledge” economy, interface with work. Or, as the authors put it, “what if work wasn’t the axis of your life?” I like this book a lot because it really considers what it might be like to work “from home” in a community (when there’s not a pandemic). There’s no reason that working from home should replicate what we do in the office or that you should sit alone in your house all day. You could gather with your friends and work, for example. There was a part of the book discussing corporate culture and looking at the history of having a “career.” The authors state “Unlike a job or a gig, a career is above all else strategic and demands not just work but appropriate assimilation into workplace culture. A career entails showing up every day and putting concentrated hours and wholeheartedly leaning into a company’s ethos.” I read that and thought, damn, I finally know why I’m never able to articulate a career goal. I’ve started telling managers that my career goals are to get paid and not be miserable, which is … not what they want to hear. Reading this book gave me some context for why I never have a career goal, plus filled me with lots of other wisdom.
The Warrior Moon
Out of Office
I’m in a big reading mood at the moment. I am really hoping my eyes cooperate. One of the biggest limiting factors for me on reading lately has been eye strain (thanks, binocular vision dysfunction). It’s getting better thanks to vision therapy but, as I’m sure I’ve said before, vision therapy also wears me out. I’ve got a large stack of library books right now and I’d like to read them all before they’re due. We’ll see weather tiredness or the will to read triumphs.
Eugenics with a smile via The Sword and the Sandwich. Difficult but essential reading about the ugly tendencies surfacing as everyone is developing pandemic fatigue.
We watched The Matrix Resurrections last night and, in preparation, I spent the week watching the original Matrix trilogy. I’ve seen them all before (The Matrix was, in fact, the first rated-R movie I saw) but it’s been a while. Rewatching them was fun and it made the new movie more enjoyable. Resurrections was really good. It built on the originals without simply remaking them and it continued to develop the world, both inside and outside the matrix.
I also continued my Cher-athon and watched Moonstruck last weekend. It was a pretty good movie and I enjoyed it. I didn’t realize that the “snap out of it” line that RuPaul often quotes is from this movie. However! Ru super exaggerates the Cher-ness of it, but she just says it normally in the movie. I felt strangely betrayed.
By the way, if anyone is on letterboxd, come find me. I’ve been logging movies I watch there.
Rampant Consumerism
I bought some really amazing chocolates from Bon Bon Bon and I want more and recommend them to you all. The flavors are great and the presentation is festive. A++ would Bon again.
In less exciting but essential purchases, I started subscribing to the eco-friendly toilet paper brand Who Gives a Crap. I kind of love getting it delivered and never thinking about it again. If anyone wants to order and save $10, I’ve got a referral code for you: https://www.talkable.com/x/dCLOov
Making Things and Doing stuff
There are some things I’ve made and stuff I’ve done.
Knitting and Crafts
I’m happy to report that I’ve finally gotten some good knitting momentum. I’m currently working up this sweater, which I’m very excited about. It has a ton of cables and it looks like it will be large and cozy. It’s made with bulky yarn, so I’m already through a good chunk (in a relative sense. I’m still slow lol).
Kitchen Witchery
The bakery has been open in my house the last couple weeks. Is it stress or am I just hungry? You decide. I made a rye bread and a focaccia (both from The Bread Bible). I made the rye to accompany a sausage and lentil soup, which was delicious, from the cookbook Grist. We had the focaccia with our favorite broccoli cheddar soup. I had been wanting to try making a dutch baby for a while and finally did. I … didn’t like it. I didn’t consider that it is made largely of eggs and I am not a big egg fan so the texture was a little icky for me. However, the flavor was good. I also made another snacking cake, the walnut with maple glaze, which is not pictured because, frankly, it looks like every other snacking cake I’ve made. Though that doesn’t mean it was any less delicious.
rye bread cross-section
dutch baby
focaccia
Cat Therapy
Finally, here are some cat photos for your nerves. I must apologize for the lack of Huey photos this week, but trust she is living her best life lounging on the couch all day.
This has been a slightly odd week for me because I haven’t been wanting to go to sleep. I’m normally very dedicated to my sleep routine, to the point that I am ready to fall asleep out of habit around the same time most nights. However, the last few nights I just don’t want to get in bed. It’s not that I’m frittering away my night hours on twitter’s infinite scroll (though I’m not above it), but I want to actually be awake and doing things at night, which is rare. I don’t know what to attribute this too. Perhaps subconsciously railing against routine (and mostly against waking up to work in the morning)? having a higher-than-normal amount of energy? new-year mania? I’m not troubled by it, mostly confused and curious to see if it persists.
Consuming
Here are some things I’ve recently read, watched, or bought.
Books and Other Words
The Afghanistan Papers
This week I finished reading The Afghanistan Papers: A Secret History of the War by Craig Whitlock. Whew. I knew on a certain level that the war in Afghanistan was a huge, expensive shit-show but this book comes in with the receipts. At essentially no point in time did the U.S. government know what they wanted to accomplish or how they could accomplish it. They tried throwing money at problems and were surprised when that didn’t pay off. It’s embarrassing that this country thinks it can roll in to a whole other nation, learn nothing about the culture, then try to build society in its own image—to say nothing of the harm the U.S. has done to the Afghan people.
Meanwhile, on the internet:
Long COVID could become Finland’s largest chronic disease, warns minister via Reuters. From the article, “a Finnish expert panel’s summary of more than 4,000 international studies … showed one in two adults and around 2% of children may experience prolonged symptoms connected to COVID-19.” So, that’s fucking terrifying. Whenever I’m tempted to develop a more cavalier attitude about covid after two years of this pandemic, I think about long covid and reconsider.
Millennials didn’t kill the economy. The economy killed Millennials. via The Atlantic. I saw this headline on instagram and went in search of the full article. I was not disappointed. It was published in 2018, but it’s still highly relevant. From the article, “Millennials are the most educated generation in U.S. history to date. They bought into a social contract that said: Everything will work out, if first you go to college. But as the cost of college increased, millions of young people took on student loans to complete their degree … And what has all that debt gotten them? ‘Lower earnings, fewer assets, and less wealth,’ according to the Federal Reserve paper’s conclusion.”
TV and Music
Kirk and I had been catching up on Doctor Who. He convinced me we should try again after I got mad and quit sometime around season eight. I really hated Clara (I still kind of hate her), but I like the show overall so we watched a few seasons. I was also looking forward to the newest seasons where a woman plays the Doctor. Unfortunately, we had to stop watching again because it got so bad. We didn’t even last three episodes into the new Doctor’s first season because the writing was terrible. There’s an episode called Rosa, which had us cringing before we started because the synopsis said that the Doctor and friends go to Selma, Alabama and—you guessed it—encounter Rosa Parks. This was so cringe-worthy that we had to stop. I don’t need to see the Doctor telling Rosa Parks that she’s “such a big fan.” So, we’re done with Doctor Who again for now. Maybe in a few years, we’ll forget the pain again.
I watched another movie this week! I hope everyone is proud. I watched Witches of Eastwick, which I picked because 1) witches and 2) Cher. It was overall entertaining, if a little weird and gross at times, but being weird and gross (in the form of Jack Nicholson’s character) is kind of the point. I’m thinking I’m going to keep with a theme and watch another Cher movie next; I have Burlesque and Moonstruck in my queue.
Rampant Consumerism
I said I planned to send slow mail this year, so I ordered some festive stamps to make the process more entertaining. I ordered some t-rex stamps (among others) because I am an eight-year-old at heart. I also wrote two letters this week to make good on my letter-writing plans. I’ve decided that, if I actually get into a habit of letter writing, I want to get a seal and seal my letters with wax to be pointlessly fancy.
Making Things and Doing stuff
There are some things I’ve made and stuff I’ve done.
Icelandic
Over the last month or so of lessons, I’ve been reading through a short story with my Icelandic teacher. It was very slow going because it was just a regular story written for people who already speak Icelandic, not people learning, and there were a lot of words and phrases I didn’t know. It made me realize that I’ve reached the hard part of learning Icelandic. I’ve got a good foundation from textbooks, but a lot of learning materials are now pretty easy to read. Anything made for native speakers is really hard. Now I have to do the brute-force work of reading and looking words up until it starts to come together. I haven’t been studying a lot lately and I think it’s because I’ve been putting off this hard stuff without realizing it. I’m hoping figuring this out will help me decided what to work on next.
Knitting and Crafts
I’ve been working on and off for a while on the Elín sock and I finally finished the first one on Friday. However, I had a little misunderstanding with the pattern (let’s not assign blame) and ended up with a heel that comes to a goofy little point. Were it the toe, I would probably laugh it off and go with it. But the heel, the part that goes under my foot? No. I’m not sure if I’m going to pull the heel out and try again or call it an art piece and be done with it. If I do make adjustments, it will be later on. I think I’m going to start knitting something entirely different for now.
Kitchen Witchery
peanut soba noodles with green beans
My in-laws keep sending Kirk home with random food items (parents, am I right?), which recently included two packets of soba noodles. I had not cooked with soba before, but I found this recipe, spicy peanut soba noodles with green beans, and gave it a try. It was delicious! It also, but pure chance, to be very similar to a recipe Kirk had been trying to get from his mom. He said his mom used to make these really good peanut noodles but he couldn’t get the recipe from her. As I was cooking this, he came into the kitchen and said it smelled just like the peanut noodles he remembered. Then, even better, it tasted like his mom’s recipe. So, this week I am happy to report that we have solved the mystery of the peanut noodle.
I must also report that I made a batch of blondies in which I mixed the crumbly bits of some coconut macaroons that refused to hold their shape, plus some chocolate and almond and the result was delicious. There is, however, no photographic evidence.
Cat Therapy
Finally, here are some cat photos for your nerves.
Christmas and New Year’s Eve have come and gone and I haven’t written a regular post in a few weeks, but I’m here now!
A big thing on my mind lately is that work is about to suck again. My fellow editor returned from maternity leave and work leveled out, but she announced last week that she’s leaving for a better job. Then my boss announced the same day that he’s also leaving for a new gig. I’m not sure where this leaves me, but I’m annoyed by it. I left my last job due to new management being horrible and turnover chaos, but here I am again.
Consuming
Here are some things I’ve recently read, watched, or bought.
Books and Other Words
The Phoenix Empress
Yesterday, I finished the second book in the Their Bright Ascendancy trilogy by K. Arsenault Rivera, The Phoenix Empress. I bought the “omnibus” ebook of the series, and I’m on the third book, but I’m barely through half of the combined ebook. The third book seems very long. I am going to reserve my opinions about this book until I finish the series. It was good, but middle books are always preoccupied with setting up for the last book.
The tale of Jorts the cat or AITA for “perpetuating ethnic stereotypes” about Jorts? via Twitter (but originally reddit). This story has brought me joy. I won’t describe it, but you should read it. Then you can follow Jorts on twitter (the person who originally submitted the AITA post is now running the cat’s twitter account).
TV and Music
You may hardly be able to believe it, but I watched two entire movies this week: Ten Things I Hate about You and To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar. Both were entertaining. I had actually never seen Ten Things I Hate about You, despite probably being its target audience when it originally premiered. Overall, I liked it, but it did have some weird vestiges of nineties-ness. I decided to watch To Wong Foo to expand my gay pop culture knowledge because that’s how I roll. I’m proud to now know where the phrase “more legs than a bucket of chicken” originated.
Rampant Consumerism
We can’t talk about Christmas without talking consumerism. Kirk got me a lovely robe (that I requested) and a really nice jewelry box (that I did not request, but was happy for). I used to have all my earrings and things in a little set of plastic cubbies and it was really annoying to dig out a matching pair. Now I can see everything and it is glorious!
I also went to the bookstore on one of my days off this week to get a few books I wanted with the Christmas money I had in my pocket (thanks, Grandma). I made an outing of it and got pastry too.
new jewelry box
new books
Making Things and Doing stuff
a framed puzzle
My mom came to visit the week before Christmas. We hadn’t seen each other since the pandemic started, so it was good to finally see her again. We mostly hung out and watched Christmas-themed TV, but we also did this cool puzzle, which we have now framed. We spend most of a day on it, which included a significant amount of time trying to keep Fritz from absconding with stray pieces.
I, of course, did a lot of Christmas baking, culminating in these big-ass cookie plates. I tried a few new recipes this year including these almond horn cookies and orange and poppy seed pretzels. I also wanted to share a photo of the dulce de leche fudge I made, because the swirl on top looks very pretty.
For Christmas eve, I wanted to make a kransekake, and I did, in fact, attempt it. I didn’t come together the way I wanted, but everyone agreed that it tasted good. I found the dough was too crumbly to shape into rings to make the characteristic tree structure, but I piled up the cookies into an abstract tree, which is still kind of festive.
For New Year’s, I tried my hand at a lucky batch of beans. I know black-eyed peas on new year’s are supposedly lucky. I had yellow-eye peas, which I hope are lucky enough. I made a really good recipe from the Jubilee cookbook with them, but did not post a photo because it just looked like a big glob.
cookie plate mania
10/10 fudge swirling
deconstructed kransekake
yellow-eye beans
Cat Therapy
Finally, here are some cat photos for your nerves. I have to note that I thought for sure Fritz would wreak havoc on the Christmas tree. He seems like exactly the type of cat to nest inside, but he was actually afraid of it. He didn’t even want to be in the same room as the tree at first. He resolutely refused to go near it for the whole season. The reason remains a mystery to the humans of the house.
