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Friday Five: Outdoorsy Edition

From last week's

1. Do you like to spend time outdoors?
I am very much an I-would-live-outdoors-if-it-wouldn't-kill-me type of person. I love hiking and even just working around the yard, because there are so many interesting geological formations/plants/moss/grasses/trees/rocks/insects/birds/fungi/animals/etc. that make up our world, and I feel more at home/in awe when I'm among them. I genuinely love hiking any time of year (we just returned from a wonderful trip to Grandfather Mountain.). Unfortunately, I have a lot of outdoor allergies and other overactive immune conditions, so I have to manage my time outdoors carefully.

2. What is your favorite flower?
Hmm, this is tough. I really do adore sunflowers but also lilies, and orchids are a special kind of beautiful - especially the tiny wild ones that are often overlooked.

3. Any favorite warm weather activities?
Hiking, wading in streams, walking riverside, listening to thunderstorms. I do also appreciate occasional trips to the ocean to gaze at the beautiful blue-green Atlantic, feel the sand on my feet, and watch the ghost crabs and shore birds scurry about. I'm really fortunate to live in a place that gives me access to both ocean and mountains, within a few hours drive.

4. Have you ever kept a garden? If so, what did you grow?
We kept a small garden before moving to our current home which is on a heavily wooded lot which nearly full shade. We grew herbs (basil, fennel, dill, lavendar), tomatoes, peppers of all sorts, squash and zucchini. We tried a pumpkin on a whim. I do miss it from time to time and have been thinking about how/where to incorporate a small patch here. I currently have some herbs and small flowers in pots that I move about the yard as the seasons change.

5. Do you know how to swim?
Yes. Growing up my parents invested in one of those aboveground pools that are about 4-5 feet deep and built a deck to go around it. So in summers in middle school and high school I would spend many of my days out there. Not a huge amount of space but it gave me the means to swim and enjoy the water, and I spent a lot of time with my mom there. In college I took more formal swim lessons (was required for graduation, guess they didn't want their graduates to accidentally drown). I really enjoyed those as well as it taught me to better manage my breathing underwater.

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daily life

The last day of early summer holidays

Today is the last day of our "Golden Week", the successive national holidays at the beginning of May. It's cloudy but not chilly. I have had 5 day holidays (weekend and 3 national holidays) and done some weeding, various domestic tasks, read books and watched some films (on internet) - not bad holiday. Now it's early afternoon and soon my sister and her husband will come here to enjoy talking with I and mother. She(my sister) is quite busy and we don't have much opportunity to talk usually. We'd enjoy talking some hours here then go to Yokohama station and have supper together.

In our garden our garden cats are enjoying napping as usual. A quiet, peaceful day, thankfully.

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I have survived!

I am way behind on everything, but I am happy to report that our trip to the mountains was in fact very lovely and a huge success. The weather held and so we were able to complete our planned hike from the Grandfather Mountain Extension Trail to Calloway Peak, as well as go out the next day to check out trails on the east side of the park.

I am having troubling finding the weight of words to describe how amazing the hikes were. The trail to Calloway Peak is an advanced trail with lots of exposed ridgeline, slippery runs supported by cables, soooo much boulder scrambling, a "chute" that is a steep slide of rockface that involves hand-over-hand scrambling (that I failed to get photos of because I wanted to not die), and 17 ladders that help climbers along the trail and access the various peaks (MacCrae, Attic Window, Calloway), tunnels, and viewpoints along the way. Sometimes the ladders are vertical, sometimes they are horizontal, sometimes they have fun angles in the middle. Sometimes you are basically scrambling on hands and feet across the edge of a rock face with nothing between you and the wild glory of the Blue Ridge. (Side note: a very large number of rocks required hiking my feet well above hip height to scramble, so I am very glad for mobility exercises.) ( +4 )

The trail is breathtaking, but the work to get up it will teach you something about yourself. I have always loved climbing (trees, rocks, fences, you name it) but there were even moments here where I wondered briefly if I was in over my head. ( +2 )

My photos do not do it justice. There is so much fir that parts of the trail smell like Christmas, while early blooms of mountain laurel, bluots, sand myrtle, and jewelweed, among others, sprout around and through rocks. ( +1 )

We ended up climbing 2,191 feet of elevation to arrive at Calloway, which is 5,946 ft about sea level. We stopped to have lunch on MacCrae peak along the way, so it took us about 4 hours to reach Calloway - luckily we were able to scramble down at a much faster 2.5 hours, and we opted on that route to take the Underwild trail to avoid having to retreat down a few of the more challenging ladders in reverse. However, even the Underwild is its own beast of navigating trails that are little more than an assortment of rocks to pick through.

The view from Calloway Peak

The full album of photos from the Grandfather Trail is here.

The next day we had been expecting rain and cold temperatures. The cold temperatures remained but the chance of rain dropped to zero, so we headed out to the pick up the east side trails via the Asusti and Tanawha trails, cutting over to the west on the Nuwati, south along the ridgeline on the Cragway until Flat Rock, and then looping back on the Daniel Boone Scout and Tanawha trails. The Asusti, Tanawha, and Nuwati trails reminded me very much of the creekside trails of Stone Mountain, but once we reached the Cragway we were in for another strenuous climb along a rocky ridgeline. That day was partly overcast, and as we climbed we would get warmer, then pause to bundle up as the winds picked up and the clouds cleared out. But the Cragway views looked almost autumnal, thanks to the early color of budding trees. It was hard to believe we were only about 2 miles from Calloway Peak.

A view from the Cragway - I love all the budding tree color!

A view of the colors of the Cragway.( +1" )

While this was a significantly easier hike (only about 700 ft of elevation gain), we still had lots of good opportunities to run around on rocky peaks, interspersed with groves of rhodendron and azalea. We stopped to have lunch along a Crag, before making our way to the next vista.( +1" )

The Cragway eventually takes you to Flat Rock, which is, as promised, a large, flat rock overlooking the valley. Trees have grown up around it, but if you find the right spots you can still get a decent view. ( +2" )

The full album of photos from the Nuwati-Cragway-Tanawha loop is here.

We eventually made our way back to our cabin (which was also lovely, it sat on 12 acres and had a lovely little creek, many beautiful trees, including my favorite tulip populars, and even a perfect rock ledge of its own), where we were able to soak back in some warmth.

All in all, we felt very accomplished. For myself - I can't explain, but being in the mountains, surrounded by the wild...it always feels like coming home. The beauty there brings me to tears every time, and I just feel more a part of everything. There is also something to just soaking up nature and clean yummy mountain air and stretching your body in fun and challenging ways under the sun and clouds and sky. Especially with the one you love. We were sad to leave, but are still thinking about it and already thinking about our next big excursion. I may be talking about it a while.

May you be well, may you be loved, may you be at peace, may you find beauty in any given moment. ♥

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SIFTING? Soil?

Deep feeling of lassitude throughout yesterday, like my bones were made of rubber bands or something. I was tired, but there was no reason for me to be tired.

Naturally, I took this to mean I have some lethal disease. Maybe multiple myeloma—Ben had multiple myeloma, it was one of the two diagnoses that may have killed him (the other being liver cancer).

Ben's multiple myeloma announced itself in a weird way.

For months & months, he'd been limping around with sciatica, which is basically one of those wait-and-heal things. His "sciatica," though, just kept growing more & more painful until eventually he went to see a doctor for X-rays—and lo & behold, his left pelvis was fractured. But he didn't remember injuring it!

They ran a slew of tests and found the malignant plasma cells that had eaten away his bones.

Multiple myeloma is not an automatic death sentence if it's managed.

But, of course, Ben's multiple myeloma had never been managed.

Between diagnosis and death rattle, it was something like seven short weeks.

I've had that on-again, off-again ache in my right shoulder for many weeks now.

It's gotta be multiple myeloma, right?

###

Since I was dying, I decided to treat myself.

Cruised into New Paltz and had eggs Benedict at my favorite Main Street café. (Breakfast is actually my favorite meal to eat out.)

Bought books. This actually turned out to be a bust: There was an author, David Liss, whom Ben & I had both liked. He wrote serious historical novels (meaning neither Regency romances nor Forever Amber). So, I plucked his latest off the Used Books shelf, something called The Twelfth Enchantment, which turned out to be a rather clunkily written adult fantasy novel. Terrible! I guess this is something that happens to people who make their living writing; at a certain point, you run out of ideas and interest in beautifully crafted sentences and just write for word count since you have a contract to fulfill.

Spent a couple of hours weeding but did not have the stamina to climb Mt. Dirt and cart away buckets of soil. Plus I ran into Phil, and he told me, the soil was great—but you have to sift it. How the hell do you sift soil?

I guess I'll find out when I'm back from Ithaca next week.

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daily life

A beautiful sunny day!

5th May. The children’s day, the natilnal holiday. It’s beautifully fine today, and the air is fresh and comfortable!! The breeze from the window is just nice. The most comfortable time of an year. Inour garden the fresh leaves of persimmon are so bright, and irises are in full bloom.

In the morning mother and I have put the net outside of the west window. We’ll plant some Goya (bitter melon) there to make the “green shade” against the strong summer sunshine. Yes, soon we’ll have the hotter days… X)

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daily life

Going out with mother

This morning I went out with mother, visited the best shopping street in Yokohama to buy good shoes for mother. Recently she has had trouble to walk so wanted more comfortable shoes with which she can walk for hours. Fortunately she could purchase a good ones :) Then we had lunch in a casual and nice restaurant - we found it’s a kind of vegetarian restaurant after we took seats. No meat in our food but they tasted good :)

After lunch we took a local bus to come home. Then I found I was oddly tired - maybe because of the crowded bus. On my way home I did some shopping, bought mainly grocery but also small cakes, though I was rather full even late in the afternoon because of the lunch… maybe we’ll have the cakes tomorrow.

Anyway it was good to go out with mother to find her stuff together :)

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Spring In the Valley

Whatever else you can say about the Wallkill Valley, this one thing is true: It is heartstoppingly beautiful, particularly in the spring when all the greens are tender and fresh, and the breeze carries the scent of stone fruit blossoms.

This weekend was the Gardiner Art Studio tour. Gardiner is suburban New Paltz, and New Paltz is a hippie preserve, where the last hippies roam free, practicing the ancient arts of organic farming, artisanal cheese-making, and handcrafting hideous tie-dye teeshirts. Please to note that in our rapidly technologically mutating world, anything over 20 years old is "ancient," particularly, or should I say, especially moi.

The Gardiner Art Studios are not in Gardiner but scattered along the backcountry roads that crisscross the plateau just below the Shawangunk Ridge. So, the tour basically gave me an excuse to explore the countryside. It was a gorgeous day. A bit cool, so the air had a prismatic quality.

The art was nothing to write home about. But, hey! It was art. Its creators poured their hopes, dreams, & fears into it. I would have bought it all for vast sums of money if I could.

Watch on YouTube

I also spent time at the New Paltz Community Garden. There was a meeting for new gardeners. Technically, I'm not a new gardener. But after joining last year, I did nothing with my half plot after weeding out the five-foot tall nettles—first, there was a hot spell for two weeks where you would basically succumb to heat stroke after five minutes if you ventured forth there even at 6 in the morning, then the person in the other half of the plot planted a bunch of her own tomatoes there. I could have raised a stink about it—That's my land!—but figured, Why?

Also, Brian was dead. Which dampened my enthusiasm for just about everything.

Anyway, they gave me another half-plot this year. I'm on probation, though.

I will wander out there for a few hours today to finish the last of the heavy weeding and transport some dirt. The New Paltz Community Garden is right next to the Wallkill River; the Wallkill River floods periodically, displacing huge amounts of rich, river-bottom soil. The Community Garden elders arrange to have that soil collected in a huge mound, free for the having. It's kind of a hassle transporting it to your own garden site, but ya gotta do what ya gotta do, etc., etc., etc.

I also need to pack & prep for my trip to Ithaca. I'm going up tomorrow to hang out with RTT for a few days, which should be the Big Fun. Haven't seen him since November! He has some political pow-wows scheduled, and he's gonna take me with him, so I'll get to see him in action.

I note that RTT seems to have adopted Zohran Mamdani as his personal style icon.

Hmmmm...

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Pollen

The air is thick with it, the ponds covered in it.

In the dead calm, falling clumps of it have reminded me of jellyfish, gently drifting deeper in ocean waters.

The other day, when the wind was strong, it looked like a blizzard outside the kitchen window.

Today, when the breeze is soft and changeable, the pollen puts me more in the mind of an alien invasion. Small bits of fluff fly in every direction as if animated by intelligent life--left right up down swirling back forth--even switching direction and hovering. Their invasion looks rather chaotic, but I imagine they know what they are doing. Several times, I have seen particular bits doubling back to reassess something. Perhaps it is me, watching them through the window.

Seeing as how I don't feel willow pollen has a particular effect on my allergies, I observe them, too, amused and charmed, but not worried.

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daily life,
krurun

The gifts from the garden

Now we are in the successive national holidays. The weather is generally fine, I ‘m doing house cleaning and various domestic tasks, and weed the garden every day. Now there came some grasses which my rabbit likes to eat.

Krurun enjoys the grasses from the garden :)

The flowers from Mochi-tree.

Current Mood: cheerful
Current Location: the wooden desk
Current Music: Beansmith 10 - Mindspray & Sawteeth

texts to read and styles to see

my mom bought a copy of S. it looks fucking awesome!!! she said i could read it when she's done. i think it looks (i didn't skim the text, but i held it in my hands and glanced around at its little papers that're placed in the book) really cool, and the papers that're put in it (e.g. a newspaper clipping, a circular cipher, a small lined yellow card...) make it feel a lot more physical. its really nice. i have quite the backlog of novels, now, which is something i'm happy with. a lot to read. i'm still on Infinite Jest, which despite its length i've never felt any part overstayed its welcome, and i'm on around page 650 or so, so the biggest chunk of the thing's already been read.

speaking of literary backlogs, i told my dad i wanted to get into CSS so i could make some skeuomorphic/early '00s types of websites, as well as UX design. i was inspired by the Syndromatic website, which has kind of an overload of that style for what it is, but really goes all out on making it look good. the guy behind it is also working on a custom distro or KDE theme or something, which is also exactly the type of thing i want to get into. he has some custom web engine based off of Wix and SproutCore, which is how i found out about SproutCore, which looks pretty nice but also pretty archaic, which is the main issue w/ that type of design; every good example and usable version of anything that's styled like that is always old and outdated. but anyway, this guys' page is a spark of hope, since he's just getting started w/ his projects. i told my dad all of this, and he gave me like 5 books dedicated to design and a CSS tutorial book. cool! i have some inspirations in mind, but i don't know what kind of site i want to make. i already have a business card kind of site, and a public directory site, and both are kind of boring looking (in fact, both use pretty much identical CSS, which i didn't even write but actually stole from some closed-off tilde website), but i would prefer a fresh slate and a more concretely objective'd site. usually this would point directly to "make a portfolio" but i don't have any work to show off! the portfolio would only consist of the page itself, and, like, some amateur photography or something. i haven't really made any gifts to the world.

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Gratitude and the Poem Launch Party

These days in France are so precious. I feel like we are outside of time, in a way, outside of various spheres of madness laying hold to the world at large. Though my husband is in another country, through multiple video calls per day, the separation is not insurmountable or as difficult as it could otherwise be.

I don't know how--or if--they are being engraved in my children's memories, but I believe and like to think they are. Life feels so, so good with an amazing confluence of circumstances that make it so: beautiful weather, good reading material, fine health, spring's beauty, children's joy in what we are doing, kind friends...*

There have been lots of hard conversations about life, what is next, how the kids feel about that, sibling squabbles, potentially stressful logistics and so on, but it is just normal life. which I feel so grateful for when "normal" should not be applied to what other people are having to live through these days.

We just finished Swallows and Amazons, which my kids loved. Just ordered the 12 book series. They are older books, and my kids thrilled to the independence the kids had, the kindness, the morality, the imagination, the lack of modern-day drama and strife. Altogether wholesome.

While we don't have a sailboat or a giant lake at our disposal, we do have a kayak and lovely neighbors who let us have access to their pond. So the other night, we headed out at sunset so the kids could paddle around. I played around in a sketchbook with acrylics and colored pencils, enjoying the moment while the kids made believe and planned for life in a new locale where adventures seem highly possible.

The kids continue to enjoy poemcrazy, and last night we created an "event" as suggested in the practice section of chapter 12. While painting at the pond, I had the urge to make a found poem that I would release upon the waters. I didn't end up doing it but decided to invite the kids to do it with me and make a party of it. The Poem Launch Party was born, and shall--memory-willing--become an annual tradition. Let everyone else celebrate Labor Day.

Sprout and I made our poems using words clipped from the copious stash of The Guardian's "Review" journals left here by the previous homeowners. Farmer Boy created his own poem, based on "texel" (a breed of sheep), one of his words from the wordpool he made using the dictionary. Ti'Loup riffed off words found on the cover of poemcrazy itself. We also wrote down five things we hate about the world or dislike in ourselves with plans to immolate them.

I made egg salad and baked a cake using some of the preserved gooseberries from last year. I gathered candles and the boys their jet lighters, while Sprout packed drinks and gathered the poems. We went to a closer pond--one we don't have express permission to visit--for our party, so that we wouldn't run the chance of disturbing our neighbors if they had friends over for weekend fishing as they sometimes do. On the way down, thanks to the lowering sun, Sprout glimpsed wondrously crimson baby cones of what I think must be a Norway Spruce.

Our party was lowkey and fun, with one moment of hilarious excitement when we all hid in the tall grass after hearing a horn honking behind us (remember what I said about no express permission? 😜). We ate and launched our poems and immolated all The Bad.

I collected words for it all into my poem book while the boys played with wax and Sprout cloud gazed. There were mountains and valleys of cloud-dappled sky to behold.

On the way home, we were followed by a crone or a dwarf. One can never be sure in the gloaming.

________
* Don't get the wrong idea of some quiet, tranquil flow of ever-and-always peaceful days. As I type this, the kitchen/dining area is in chaos, Farmer Boy stands on a bar stool being a (VERY LOUD) clown, while sister and brother play a counterpoint to his comedy. They are all a bit electric today, and sparks easily fly. And my own tongue can be razor sharp.

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An Interesting Discovery

Real reason I like gardening?

I like playing in dirt.

But it did dawn on me yesterday while I was driving past the gas station where I've been fueling up regularly for the past two years that now there's an even more compelling reason to garden. Namely, I like to eat.

Prices at this gas station, which have hovered at the $2.99/gallon mark plus or minus 20¢ for the entire time I've been using it, were up to $4.50/gallon yesterday. That's a 50% increase in six weeks. And naturally, those transportation costs are baked into every single thing you purchase.

You can defer purchasing most things, but you can't defer purchasing food.

It's fuckin' infuriating.

These people who voted for that addled clown in the White House are still not willing to admit they made a bad call. Their lives are collapsing around them, but hey! it was worth it to keep all those guys who want to be girls and girls who want to be guys from messing with the genitalia God gave them.

###

In other news, I managed to incorporate the comic bit with oversharing metamour into Section 1, though I have no idea whether it reads funny.

Also when I went down to the kitchen to make coffee this morning at 5 am—like I say, I'm an inveterate early riser—I saw a small University of Utah notebook on the kitchen island, and I opened it.

Editorial aside: You never want to leave a confidential document around me. I am Harriet the Spy, and I will read it!

I figured the notebook belonged to the oldest Spawn who left the University of Utah under mysterious circumstances.

Instead, it turned out to belong to Icky who has been using it as a kind of sporadic diary.

I do not care about clothes, Icky wrote. His handwriting is very spiky. Calligraphy on acid. I care about chemistry, connections, intellect.

I was shocked to see my own name: Patrizia oil story right over Scoring story.

Scoring?

And what possible Patrizia oil story could there be? I made Patrizia freeze for two weeks because I neglected to order heating oil?

The diary entries only occupied a handful of pages at the beginning of the notebook, but one of the last things he'd scribbled: Don't use when kids are in the house—

Oh.

OF COURSE.

Duh.

Icky has a cocaine habit.

Figures. Cocaine is the only drug he's ever admitted to enjoying—he doesn't do pot, he doesn't do alcohol—and he's signaled his enjoyment of it on several occasions by making non-sequitur eightball quips that were peculiar in context, to say the least.

As an alumnus of The Rolling Stone glam squad, he certainly has access. And he has the income to afford it.

Well, well, well.

Cocaine is only a fun drug for the first couple of snorts. It produces a very benificent high that turns you into the omniscient narrator.

That third snort—well. You do it hoping to regain that spectral perspective of that first snort. Only you get jumpy, and it doesn't.

I know! I'll do more, you think. Only those fouth, fifth, and sixth snorts don't work either, and pretty soon, you're desperate to crawl out of your skin—

I loathe cocaine.

Last time I was offered some, I rolled my eyes: "No fuckin' way."

Anyway, if Icky is a cokehead, that explains a lot.

Current Mood: hungry

on knowledge and limits (not the delta-epsilon kind)

I've got so much work due next week that I almost haven't got the time to complain. Almost.

Today our TOK teacher was telling us about a former student of his who believed in past lives and thought he was a pilot during WWII. I asked him what side this kid thought he fought on and he said "clearly the wrong side because he ended up wearing [our school's] uniform in his next life." I'm writing my exhibition on "the challenges raised by the dissemination and/or communication of knowledge." I wanted to tackle different aspects of this question with my three chosen objects.

I've got "river crab" as my first one. It's a Chinese internet meme poking fun at the CCP's decision to censor the Internet to produce a "Harmonious Society" (a concept that originated as a reaction to increasing inequality in Mainland China resulting from unchecked economic growth). "River crab" (héxiè) and "harmonious" (héxié) are homophones, so netizens use it as a tongue-in-cheek way of mocking censorship. This doesn't change a thing, of course, but most forms of online activism rarely do. I'm thinking about using this as my example of the restrictions censorship puts on communication.

For my second one I felt I needed to address the medium that knowledge is disseminated through, which is why I wanna write about fiber-optic cables. They're arguably the most critical infrastructure supporting long-distance connection via the modern Internet and telecommunications, and it's all done with modulated pulses of light producing strings of binary code. But they're so susceptible to environmental damage! Critical communications may be cut off w/o the ability to repair them. That's part of why I think they're so fascinating. Nations, societies etc. are so fragile. When the Roman Empire fell all of a sudden nobody came around to repair the roads anymore, and think about what happened to the infrastructure in the USSR's constituent republics after 1991! I could easily imagine something similar happening to our global information superhighway, and all the knowledge that would be lost. It'd also be interesting to analyze a map of these undersea cables and what that says about how material conditions impact where knowledge is spread and who gets to access it.

Haven't decided on the third one yet, but I know I wanna get into the limits of language itself. Claude Shannon's Prediction and Entropy of Printed English (1951) gets into quantifying the redundancy of written English. Shannon found that 50% of words in the typical sentence are redundant, easily predictable, and only exist due to the conventional rules of the language. This affects how efficiently words can be communicated as bits: the standard transmission is 1 word/bit, but Shannon predicted it could go to approx. 4 words/bit. I could also write about Wittgenstein's Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1921), where he famously asserted that "... the limits of language (of that language which alone I understand) mean the limits of my world", which I interpret as the limit of logical possibilities that a language gives to its speaker, ergo their "world". I don't know much about formal linguistic theories, but I always found it fascinating how language naturally limits the maximum efficiency of communication, or even what can be experienced/communicated. At times I wish I could beam my consciousness directly into someone else's head and make them understand me without all the ambiguity of language, like a Vulcan mind meld.

Current Mood: pleased

Entry tags:

Riding The Smallest High Ever...

I read for an audience of twelve, but it gave me something to look forward to when I haven't had many, and I had faith in myself to put myself on the program and stuff, which I wouldn't used to do, and other disabled people liked it, which doesn't always happen if I follow my most natural inspirations.
Pretty damn good for May Day Friday. Even if it isn't a huge step as I might long for in my wildest fantasies.

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And Behold! Esau Thrifted

On a sunny morning when I've slept decently, there's no such thing as existential angst. Sure, the world is going to hell. Hasn't the world always been going to hell? It's only the versions of hell that differ.

Anyway, today is a day when the sky is blue, and the Fitbit—a minor household god—tells me I logged seven hours of "fair" rest. (I have no idea how Fitbit differentiates between "poor," "fair," and "good.")

Yesterday, however, was not: I felt fuckin' awful, like a vegetarian zombie or something: Yes, I should eat someone, but I don't feel like it!

I made the money I needed to make and then took off on errands. Got lost in the strip mall sprawl that is commercial Middletown. (Farmland just 20 years ago.) Found myself in front of a gigantic Goodwill, which I took to be a sign from God. (And behold! Esau thrifted.)

Then real-life Mimi texted me. I had helped her with her tax return, and she wanted to know where her EIC-enhanced refund was. Like how the fuck would I know, girl?

The IRS maintains a website called, conveniently enough, Where's My Refund? I directed her there, adding, If you’re listed as owing money to the IRS, though, they’ll apply any refund toward that. Do you owe? Because I'd told her she should let me do her 2024 taxes at the same time I did her 2025 taxes since, of course, she hadn't filed those. But she wouldn't let me.

Turns out she owed money, and the IRS was withholding her refund until one of its few remaining human employees could find time to do the arithmetic.

Okay so I just shouldn't count on anything then. I give up! she texted.

Thing with real-life Mimi is that one can never be quite sure whether she's just being rhetorically melodramatic or her extreme emotional volatility is steering her in the direction of self-harm (which would be a cause for alarm).

I know she was counting on that tax money to fund her move from Brian's cabin where she has been staying rent-free for the last nine months. Real-life Flavia (who owns the deed to the place) has been the soul of generosity here, but behind the scenes, Flavia's BFF Betsy & I had been agonizing over New York State's squatter laws because it's never easy to predict what real-life Mimi is going to do, just when she's going to turn hostile.

Standing in front of the Middletown Goodwill (where I fully expected to harvest an entire summer wardrobe for the low, low price of under $100), I had the crazy notion that I would just give Mimi $1,000 to finance the move. After all, this is what Brian's ghost would want me to do, right?

It's the same feeling that prompted Flavia to let Mimi stay in the cabin: Brian loved her, Brian would have wanted her to be cared for.

But if Brian loved her and wanted her to be taken care of so much, he should have left her some money in his will, right?

I must channel my inner Mick Jagger!

It's just. I make so little money right now. I'm trying my best to make this work, she texted, and if someone else had said this to me, my heart would have gone out to them—poor gallant, valiant soul! Yes, times are incredibly tough, and there but for the grace of God etc, etc, etc. Who knew then there would ever come a time when we would all be old and limited?

But the thing is I don't actually like real-life Mimi.

You could start a GoFundMe, I texted.

What the hell! I'd kick in twenty bucks!

Or I could sell some of my ceramics, she texted back.

No-oo-ooo, don't do that! I thought. Because I'd feel compelled to buy some, and I hate your bloody ceramics.

###

In garden news, I weeded out 40 pounds or so of nettles day before yesterday. It was a cloudy, cold day, which, while excellent for avoiding sunstroke, is not the kind of day I enjoy gardening. However, work that must be done is work that must be done.

Shortly, I will wander back over to finish the job. Since it's sunny today (though decidedly cool), I should enjoy the work more.

###

In Work in Progress news, I thought of a comic scene that would work well inserted into the opening section of Chapter 7: Flavia, who scrupulously avoids introductions to Neal's other poly partners, somehow gets dragooned into going out to dinner with one (plus Neal). Polly Partner starts revealing awful sexual secrets: How Neal had to teach her how to have vaginal orgasms again after her episiotomy; how after a lusty bout of anal sex, she had several days of plopping small poops—did that happen to Flavia, too?

Only yesterday, I was in the throes of sleep-&-sunshine-deprived existential despair and could not write anything—which doubtless meant that I would never be able to write anything ever again, especially not comedy, which requires a light touch.

I'll give it another whirl today.

Entry tags:

daily life

Overeating :(

This evening I ate out with a friend, and she chose the restaurant famous for the big pork steak. Their smallest dish was 200g pork steak. It's the twice the size of the meat I usually eat at supper X(　　The steak tasted good, I could finish it ... though at the moment my stomach is quite heavy... X(

Entry tags:

3cSACPOP [draft]

Thide (pseud. "Comix^64") (b. Year of Chassis)

"Three Cheers for Strikes Against Civilian POP3²²¹²ulations (or, 'saltem finitur')" (Year of the Blacksmith Sixth Millennium Hyperweapon)

Light on Optic-Bound Flash-Memory Diskette

( NOTES & ERRATA ) ( DRAFT NOTES )

Blessed Walpurgisnacht

Walpurgisnacht! With Shadowplay tonight, which I might need to attend despite being exhausted and it being a show night.

We are halfway to Samhain, Beltane sits opposite Halloween, and the veil is as thin here as there. Faeries faeries everywhere, likely in plain sight.

It's WARM. We expect a high of 80. !

I have a big long day of work but I am as always so grateful for sparkling, and the people who come to me for it.

Watch on YouTube

Saddle Mt was glorious yesterday, there were so many shooting stars! They are my favorite. The type that grows here is extremely rare and only grows in eight small select (many of them secret!) locations in the area.

shooting stars

so cute!

phlox like rox

faun lilies

avalanche lilies

such a pretty day.

sup

...

The little dehumidifier I got is helping. I maybe should have gotten a bigger one, but it's doing some good at least. If, as it gets muggier, the size of the room is too much for it, I can bring it upstairs and get another one. I don't mind emptying them daily, maybe I can water plants with it as the weather gets warmer.

There are some scary things I am not attending to (doctor appts, deeper research into loan issues to confirm that what TISLA told me is true - I'm feeling fairly confident I'm okay but still feel the need to double check, house things, studio things, work things), but I'm so nervous that I'll have another mental health setback that I am sticking to light activities that I can handle for the rest of this week. Maybe for the entirety of May. We'll see.

thanks, universe

Haaaaaaaaaaahahahaha omg so funny. I was fretting for so long about whether or not to look for a different PCP because the lady I finally met with after 8 months of waiting was not a great fit, and just got a note this morning that she's leaving the state. So I have to find a new one anyway. lol.

Today is beautiful. I had an amazing hike on Saddle yesterday. I have a huge work day ahead of me. My back hurts and I need coffeeeeeeee. (Still getting up at 6am, but I start with herbal tea.)

Entry tags:

thought

Thought on a gloomy day

Though the world is now full of terrible, unreasonable, unfair news, thankfully my own life is generally peaceful. Even with some minor physical problems I’m generally fine, my mother and rabbit too. I work on every workday, some of my job are interesting enough. I live in a now not new but still nice house (though it has had some equipment problems recently XD), talk with mother and play with my rabbit everyday, enjoy looking at the tree leaves and various flowers in our garden and looking at the funny garden cats, exchange e-messages often with some good friends, read books, etc… I know well that I’m fortunate about these, and am rather contented with my ordinary life :)

Still sometimes, on such gloomy day (today it’s cloudy and they say we’d have rain in the evening, and it’s rather chilly), I feel sudden sadness or loneliness or helplessness. I’m not sure if this is because of mental condition or because of the world and social situation. Anyway I feel like this world is not the very safe place to live. So, on such moment I need to hear my friends’ voice X) Are you feel like me sometimes?

When I was young I wanted to become an old lady with confidence and strong belief some day, but as I got older it seems I have bee losing the confidence or belief about the world or about myself. The world, and myself, are changing every day, and both of them are not simple as I had imagined in my youth.