Even if things feel stagnant for a while, I can understand that I’m still quietly building the foundations for a period of growth that has yet to come.
an object at rest stays at rest
i want to learn how to write better. not for anyone else, but in the chance that someone does eventually read what i have to say (my goal), i want it to sound good. i've decided that on top of the just for fun harvard courses dillon and i are gonna take together, i'm going to dedicate the rest of quarantine to get it together with my writing and sharing. i am already sharing so much with my family and i think i make a lot of sense, so i know i can do it for a larger audience if i just start and stop being scared. reading ozan's blog is really helping me feel better about this. i really do want to find a place where i belong so i can work on accepting myself (dillon sweetly brought this up again the other night). an object at rest stays at rest - i don't want that to be what i get out of this life-altering moment in history. i'm building muscle, but i want to build skills, too!
today is april 16th
it snowed yesterday and mom said it's supposed to snow again tomorrow. we are tired of bundling up.
i'm doing okay so far today. i got up and had a nice walk with sadie, saw some woodpeckers fighting over a spot in the tree, made my instant coffee latte (my real coffee finally arrives today!), read a good amount of suttree, showered, and made french toast and home fries with onions while listening to andrew bird. french toast works out the first couple of slices but then it becomes a burnt stuck hell.
now that i ate i'm feeling a little sluggish and am running out of ideas for what to do. i kinda just wanna mess around on reddit and fall asleep even though i slept enough last night. based on the last week or so, that tends to make me feel guilty so i might try to avoid it. maybe i'll play cities?
april 10th in retrograde
alex g did an instagram live! it made me happy. and then i donated $20 to oxfam.
it's april 11th
ok clearly i'm done coming here to write about my day every day now. i can never stick with something. oh well. i can at least commit to just coming here whenever the mood strikes.
today i finally tried The Coffee. it was delicious and easy. will do again someday.
today i finally tried The Coffee. it was delicious and easy. will do again someday.
welcome to hell world, everybody
Here’s what I want I want to walk into a bar and sit down next to some fucking guy and be annoyed by every single little movement he makes and every comment about what’s playing on the TV. I want me to want him to shut the fuck up. I want to have the bartender ask me how I am and I want to tell them not too bad man and mean it. I want to wheel my carriage down the aisle of the grocery store and find someone standing in front of the vast array of Cheez-It options taking their sweet ass time deciding and I want to think hurry up with the Cheez-Its Jesus Christ. I want to peel off my clothes in a room full of gross old man dicks and balls and climb into my shorts and walk to the pool and hurl myself into it even though it’s monotonous to me and swim back and forth going nowhere just moving through the water. I want to be dragged to a dinner party I would prefer not to go to and sit there on someone’s stupid couch and reach a pita chip over and scrape it across the bowl of humus and say ha ha that’s wild when someone is telling me a story about whatever cute little job they have and I want to go meet a friend I haven’t seen in a while and sort of not feel like it all day but then realize half way through the visit that I love them and there’s a reason why I still know them even after all these years. Then once I’ve done all that once I’ve talked and talked I want to go home and be alone for a little while like it’s a pleasure I’ve earned not a punishment we’re all suffering through.
on government
When I first read “Atlas Shrugged” for a high school assignment, I was so impressed with Ayn Rand’s philosophy of strength, independence and forging through life on one’s own that I reread the book a few more times in the next few years. The final time I was a young mother and as I read, I realized that there were no children in Rand’s cast of characters, no old people; no one was sick or disabled. Where were they? How were they supposed to manage on their own?That’s when I became a Democrat, even a socialist. It finally dawned on me that total self-reliance is fine, as long as you’re young, healthy and strong. But no one gets through this life on her own. It takes a village to support a community, to raise and educate children, to care for the sick and elderly. Who wants to live in a world where the weak are thrust aside and forgotten? Rand’s philosophy could never be mine. Her words allowed me to crystallize my own thinking. I grew up.
day...fifteen?
i'm starting to lose track of time!
i'm getting a little annoyed at the lack of routine these days. the only routines i have are my walks with sadie. today we went back to a nature reserve we like because i wanted to walk through the neighborhood that connects to it and it made me very happy. i want to live in a hilly neighborhood like that one day.
last night i watched once upon a time in hollywood with dillon at his insistence and i did not like it at all. first of all i'm too dumb to know the history of those old movie stars because i literally do not care and the movie was so dragged out trying to say something in those extended moments but totally failed. nothing meant anything to me! the movie looked good and i liked leo's character but that's it. based on what i remember from the previews i thought it was going to be fun and exciting. it wasn't and i couldn't wait for it to be over. BUMMER. inglorious basterds forever.
i went grocery shopping yesterday and spent $120. i made sure to get some snacks this time. i don't feel like i have a lot of meals to make with what i got though, or maybe i'm just getting uninspired. i haven't cooked anything REALLY in like a week. we had burgers today.
it rained a little on and off but it was so warm and nice this afternoon. sadie and i had such a nice time outside. dillon missed out, as usual! by the time he finally tried to take sadie out, it was dark and pouring rain. we had a little thunderstorm roll in when we started our workout tonight. it was nice with all the windows open.
reading:
dillon showed me this article. it made portrait of a lady on fire make that much more sense! i was surprised at how quickly strangers in that movie started talking straight with each other, but now i see how it wasn't unrealistic at all. it also made me realize that even during a pandemic, i am thinking too much about the future and trying to plan it. i haven't been able to just live in the moment in a long time because i'm never where i want to be, yet. but now, i really don't have a choice. i hope i can stop feeling guilty about "wasting my time" playing computer games or whatever because ALL WE HAVE IS TIME. moment after moment, for months.
day thirteen
it was still sunny out when we walked this morning, but the clouds started rolling in right before we went inside. i did read suttree, did my isolation journal, showered, cleaned a little, read some articles and emails, loaded a new roll of film and shot some pictures, took sadie on a longer walk to the neighborhood with the park we like, played cities for like 30 minutes, and just made myself a cup of earl gray with milk and honey.
cooking:
after learning about this newsletter i decided to make soft boiled eggs for breakfast because he said they are the best eggs and he has chickens. i do think eggs are gross and i feel guilty eating them but once in a while someone makes them look really good. i did end up liking them since i ate them with creamed spinach and toast. then i made some for dillon when he finally got up. we have been complaining about breakfast lately so it was a nice change of pace.
it looks like it's whole wheat pasta with leftover red sauce for dinner. some of the only things we have to eat after this are white beans!
watching:
day twelve: just mashing buttons
walking sadie when i first wake up, between 7-8am, have been the best parts of my days lately. those little fuzzies from the tree were glowing and the birds are busy busy busy above us. today i noticed a new little black bird, some robins of course, and redwinged backbirds whose songs i got to identify. like a buzz and a ding. they're cute birds. you really start to miss them all those winter mornings.
listening:
this is how i'm starting my morning. the description is everything. what i would give to be in a cafe in berlin right now...
trying:
i'm interested in making a spider diagram, but i'm afraid i don't have any big ideas that i'm trying to work through right now. i know that's false. we'll see what happens.
day three of isolation journals! i'm loving these prompts, even though they sometimes make me write/think about things i don't feel like thinking about.
reading:
boy am i glad i scrolled back in my inbox and opened the newsletter from jack druce. here's, like, most of it because i have no restraint:
When I was playing lots of Super Smash Brothers with my housemate, occasionally we would land a move that put our opponent to sleep or buried them in a hole, this would temporarily give you a free shot to do as much damage as you could. Neither of us could ever execute a good attack because we were so excited about the opportunity to win the fight that we'd freeze up and start mashing buttons and waste the opportunity. I’m feeling this on a global scale right now. Everything that stops you focusing on your passions has just gone to sleep and the whole world is mashing buttons.
The sweet fantasy of how nice it would be to get fit, or write that novel, or learn Spanish, has shifted from a beautiful dream to a daunting reality. Something difficult you would need to put in your calendar, something that might not be as fun as you imagined. The deeper fear for me is that if I don’t do these things now, when would I possibly do them. I can't do stand-up, I can’t see my friends, I’m not at work, If I don’t do something now, do I have to just admit to myself that saying ‘I’m too busy’ was just a more compassionate way of saying, ‘I don't want to start this because I’m afraid of being vulnerable’?
If you are struggling to figure out how to best use this time. Rather than thinking about what a turbo-legend you will be at the end of this, try to think about how you can enjoy being who you are and doing the things that interest you right now, without putting too much weight on how much it will affect you in the future.
cooking:
just scarfed some leftovers after an hour+ workout with dillon. i can almost deadlift as much as he can!
day eleven
first day of sunshine in about a week! it warmed up to 60 degrees and i stayed outside as long as possible. sadie and i sat out on the grass between the parking lot and the road while i read. i decided to start Suttree. it's already amazing but takes some focus. there are a lot of words in there.
happy spring!
listening:
my walks were extended by my not wanting to go inside until i finished this episode.
reading:
like i said, i started reading suttree. i also finally finished drive your plow over the bones of the dead. it wasn't really for me but i liked that it was kind of about animal rights. i've never read a book like that before. i also downloaded strangers in their own land because i am ready for a non-fiction again. so now i'm reading two books at once again and it's probably going to be three soon because i'm waiting for one ebook hold. oh well, i've got nothing but time!
cooking:
i just roasted cauliflower and made quinoa so i could make a poor-woman's buddha bowl with the leftover chickpeas. i'm doing very well at not letting food go to waste! i made a lemony mustard dressing and mixed in some plain yogurt too. it was actually better than i thought considering i am OUT OF ONIONS!!! what was i thinking not getting any last time we shopped.
dillon hasn't cooked anything in a while and does not seem to spend any of his time thinking ahead about meals, so he decided that he wanted hungry howies. we went to the farther one so it was nice to have a little family nighttime drive. we got two mediums so i'm happy to have lots of leftovers i guess.
happy spring!
day ten
cooking:
i made a big batch of creamed spinach that didn't turn out as well as it did last time i made it but i was able to fix it a little. i ate a lot of that with tortilla chips and for dinner i roasted the rest of the asparagus and put it between two pieces of toast with mayo and vegan scallion cheese spread and olives and spinach and it was too salty but it did the trick.
*for some reason my phone is not syncing so i will upload the photo later*
watching+listening:
i listened to a great podcast episode from a show i know nothing about but i found it because brian dunning was being interviewed. he is a popular science writer and host of the long-running podcast skeptoid. obviously this was sparked by stuff jess has been sending me: interviews and books from quack doctors and snake-oil salesmen. that episode (which i listened to while walking sadie on the b2b path) is where i learned about the book Factfulness by hans rosling so now i'm really interested in checking that out next. i watched a ted talk by him and his son about how to make better estimates about the world and such, which i've already heard of before so it wasn't really news to me.
later dillon put on a movie that i already forget the name of with ray liota and scoot mcnary and that australian guy that we both like (how am i forgetting his name right now??). i was not into it at all.
reading:
i finished both ebooks: eleanor is completely fine and the bookish life of nina hill. i gave eleanor 4 stars and nina hill 3. they were cute which is different from what i normally read and i guess i could call the nina hill one a guilty pleasure read because it was sort of embarrassing but it was a nice change. after perusing the ebook selection on hoopla and libby i started reading a non-fiction book by anne bogel that i've been eyeing called don't overthink it. i'm gonna hopefully learn how to stop torturing myself and trust myself more. i miss reading physical books though so i may start suttree soon.
i made a big batch of creamed spinach that didn't turn out as well as it did last time i made it but i was able to fix it a little. i ate a lot of that with tortilla chips and for dinner i roasted the rest of the asparagus and put it between two pieces of toast with mayo and vegan scallion cheese spread and olives and spinach and it was too salty but it did the trick.
*for some reason my phone is not syncing so i will upload the photo later*
watching+listening:
i listened to a great podcast episode from a show i know nothing about but i found it because brian dunning was being interviewed. he is a popular science writer and host of the long-running podcast skeptoid. obviously this was sparked by stuff jess has been sending me: interviews and books from quack doctors and snake-oil salesmen. that episode (which i listened to while walking sadie on the b2b path) is where i learned about the book Factfulness by hans rosling so now i'm really interested in checking that out next. i watched a ted talk by him and his son about how to make better estimates about the world and such, which i've already heard of before so it wasn't really news to me.
later dillon put on a movie that i already forget the name of with ray liota and scoot mcnary and that australian guy that we both like (how am i forgetting his name right now??). i was not into it at all.
reading:
i finished both ebooks: eleanor is completely fine and the bookish life of nina hill. i gave eleanor 4 stars and nina hill 3. they were cute which is different from what i normally read and i guess i could call the nina hill one a guilty pleasure read because it was sort of embarrassing but it was a nice change. after perusing the ebook selection on hoopla and libby i started reading a non-fiction book by anne bogel that i've been eyeing called don't overthink it. i'm gonna hopefully learn how to stop torturing myself and trust myself more. i miss reading physical books though so i may start suttree soon.
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