Reaching Out

Man I need to get to bed earlier tonight. I went to bed last night at 2, woke up at 10am, which is enough sleep, but by the time I got going, it was afternoon, blergh.

I took a Lyft over to Cellar Door Books, and picked up some books. Linda, the owner, asked me for help getting Latin@ YA and I was like "UH" and had to rack my brain for some names, and asked Twitter. Went to KFC to have lunch, and remembered about WNDB's resources, so I went back to the bookstore.

Anyway, because I was so helpful, Linda told me I was welcome to any of the ARCs in the back room, so I went round the back, and picked up Justina Ireland's Dread Nation, which I'm pretty excited about.

I walked to campus to pick up some more books and clear out my mailbox. Vonnie and I spoke a little--I guess the weight loss is SUPER visible to some people. IDK, I think I look mostly the same.

Walked home with my tea set and water filter, and tomorrow I'll grab the kettle, and then have to figure out how I'm bringing home the posters.

I went to swim later than usual--5pm. Did 4 sets of 6 again, and it got cold again, so I sat in the hot tub again. IDK, I'm not a fan of it. I bought a swim cap and new goggles last night and wish I'd thought about it sooner. I should have also bought a lap counter, too, now that I think of it. But as September rolls in, it will probably get colder? So I'll be at the pool less, probably. I'm gonna see if I can push my laps up to 30 before fall officially gets here, because that would be nice as a personal best. Then I gotta figure out what to do next.

I went to MacDonald's again tonight, this time with a coupon for a Happy Meal. I actually liked it! Four nuggets, half a small fries (SO SMOL!), a chocolate milk, a thing of yogurt (yogurt!!!) and I was actually quite full after. I think that might have been the combo of the yogurt and the milk. I had tummy issues after, which I'll chalk up to the milk, so next time I'll get it with the small orange juice and see how my stomach plays with that, and hopefully it's not the yogurt.

I was thinking of walking to campus to put away some books I'd strewn across a table which was not mine, because Brittany has office hours tomorrow (I think?) so I really shouldn't have all that stuff there. But I thought I'd go home and try to get some sleep early instead, and try waking up earlier.

There are still some citations that I can't seem to find page number for, and the footnotes are going to be messy until the final round because I cannot be arsed to fix it when I know I'm going to have to do it AGAIN after the next round of edits. I re-read the conclusion and it was not as rubbishy as I thought, so I fixed it up some more. I got through re-reading and editing the fourth chapter too, and hopefully it won't need to many edits. (Splitting it off to make it my next book project will probably be the thing, anyway.) Dr. ML says she'll get it back to me on Monday, so that's half a week I've got to take a break and do OTHER things besides my dissertation.

Then I went to campus and cleaned up my desk a bit, and pulled down my posters. I brought home some books, sorted some papers. There's a small thing of stationery I'll take to the big TA office. I should have my office cleared out by the weekend.

I've been eating sandwiches for lunch: sourdough bread, with spreadable ham and some cheese. It's been really nice! The grill is working great even though it's broken and I have to hold it together with an elastic headband. Still have some lasagna left, but the other night I had some shallow-fried fish, and that was nice.

I went for a walk tonight, and for a couple of stretches I jogged a bit. I didn't stretch beforehand, which I think may have made the jogs a bad idea. I'm trying to see if I can get this usual 5k walk down to 1 hour from the 1 and a half hours. It just takes so long! I did forget that jogging/running makes me sweat like my forehead is leaking all over my face and I should have worn a headband. Next time *shakes fist* IIRC I also used to run with a towel, too, especially when running in Malaysia. (I don't recall having to do that in Halifax.) I wasn't as winded for the brief spurts I did do, though, so that's something, I think.

Maybe I'll ask someone if they want to go to the trampoline park.

At 9-ish, after HAUGHing at the weather, not wanting to go to campus because around lunch I'd have to leave the office to find food, I decided that I would go to Coco's, order a bacon and eggs flatbread, because I know I cannot finish it in one sitting, and just sit there for hours, feebly trying to finish it.

It took me 4 hours to get through the whole thing.

Against my better sense, I also ordered a slice of cheesecake pie. I did not manage to finish it, even after two more hours.

I should have ordered clam chowder instead, and maybe fries. Except I'm not sure the fries would have been any better.

I have ~1000 words for my fourth chapter, many of which was not even written today.

When I left, I left a huge-ass tip because I felt so bad for the wait staff because I was so anxious about my writing I avoided eye contact with them almost the whole time.

I DID want to swim today, and thought I would save it for sunset, because it was still going to be a heinous 33'c in the evening. But I wanted to catch a Pikachu wearing Ash's hat so I did my long walk instead. Maybe tomorrow when S. and I go to UCSD I'll hike down to Black's Beach and go for a swim in the ocean? Or maybe not, and go to the Geisel library and work instead (which I never did last year).

My smartphone is having issues charging itself. I'll plug it in, and it'll charge for some time, but then, arbitrarily, it'll decide to just.... not charge. Like the USB cord is in, it WAS charging, but at some point it just stops. It'll recognize when the USB has been unplugged when I pull it out, but otherwise I can't figure out what's going on with it. I wonder if it has to do with the weather, and it doesn't charge so well in intense temperatures. But my laptop is also taking forever to charge fully, despite these being perfectly decent (and new) wires. I'm not sure what's going on.

- Been having a low-grade flu for the last week or so, lots of sneezing at night. Could be allergies too, but I'm feeling a tickling at the back of my throat.

- Yesterday, went to campus with Mary and Leen to do some work. The anthology I'm currently reading is a slow slog, but I'm getting used to making scribbles in the margins.

Then I went to Ten Ren's for Maurisa's birthday. I felt kind of, idk, outside my body for a while? Like I was not quite there.... a fishbowl sort of feeling. I wasn't feel great. Maurisa and I went to Rite Aid afterwards so I could buy a bunch of allergy pills.

I couldn't sleep for HOURS. I blame the tea I had at dinner.

- This morning I got up at a reasonable hour, did laundry, and cleaned the kettle. This is a big deal because the kettle had a LOT of calcium buildup (roommate uses tap water for boiling). I used up most of the white vinegar in the house, but the kettle is mostly clean now! The spout area is still a bit grimy; I don't really know how to fix THAT.

I made pork rib soup. Went to the grocery store and got some sausage and chicken meat. Now I have lunch for the next couple of weeks, I think. I also marinated four thigh, each in a different ziplock bag of their own, with different marinade mixes! Yay food! When I want dinner, I'll just pull one down from the freezer. I think this will work out OK.

- I received big news that will be announced tomorrow. Can't wait :D :D :D

- Almost done the SEAsteampunk manu!

- I made macaroni alfredo tonight. Minced meat, cheese. I have enough food for three meals.

- Somehow had a rousing discussion about LosCon on FB.

- My brother's ex, who I do not like, tried to send me a friend request. DO NOT WANT! I don't care how long it's been, STILL DO NOT WANT.

I said to my friend Rubato yesterday, everything feels like it takes so long in Southern California. It's so exhausting. I wake up to do one thing and suddenly it feels like that's the only thing I can do all day. Part of it for me is the suburban sprawl. But I don't know, it feels strange, that I'm so unproductive here.

Anyway, the highlight of today! Was harvesting my worms' poop for the first time, officially! I've done it before, of course, as part of the outdoor adventure, but this is the first indoor one. Pictures of the process here. I distributed some of it in my garden, and have some leftover in a clear plastic tub. Because my bin was really damp, there were these little mites being part of the ecosystem, and they have been coming out of the dry castings, confusedly wandering along the walls of the plastic tub.

Rubato also drew me a Chinese steampunk earthworm mascot yesterday which appears to be becoming the theme of my life: blending all my hobbies together. I'll go to JoAnn's sometime to see what I can find for making a plush worm XD

My eyes are kind of sandy, and I think it's because I wore eyeliner yesterday. I've noticed this in the past where if I wear eye makeup for protracted periods of time, my eyes are super sandy the next day and it just feels like I'm sleepy although I'm probably not.

Anyway, I also did laundry, and it's exciting when I do laundry. Laundry is so great. Even better, when I got the laundry out of the dryer, I decided to pour it all on my bed and burrow under it, pulling my comforter on top to maintain the temperature. As one does, as an adult, right?

I had a very strange dream of being a butler-robot forced to accompany my mistress back in time to nurse her mother through her birth. Then giant robots attack and the baby escapes with the father, but I have to watch the mistress and mother die. And there is a causal loop occurring, and each time the deaths escalate in violence until my character tries to break the causal loop somehow. I don't know if it happened because I woke up because a crazy crab robot was trying to kill me and I noped out of the dream!

(Before that there was another dream about a sea captain who ignored this girl and her pet something on a raft, then on a boat, because she was some sort of bad omen, and then suddenly all the ships he and his crew came across were ghost ships, and his crew began mysteriously dying, until he finally decided to rescue the mystery girl, who then recruited him to go on some land-locked mission with her. I don't really know how this transitioned into the time travel giant robot explosions, sorry.)

I actually got out to the grocery store, which was fairly impressive. I actually have a whole chicken from my last trip to 99 Ranch which I'm going to put into the crock pot tomorrow, and I also bought some lasagna things... gonna try making lasagna sometime this week for the first time! The catfish nuggets I bought, though, smelled a little funky.

I got out of bed before 10am to work some more on my skirt, and around 2.30pm tore away from it to head to campus, where I met with PK and starlady to go downtown to the Mission Inn tour! We then went to get cupcakes, and hung out at my place for a bit before going to Marlen's for dinner, where I overstuffed myself with tacos. I always underestimate tacos!

Anyway, while walking home, first, there was a creepy guy behind us who was either talking to us or to himself, which freaked PK out so much she asked us to slow down so he could pass us. Then just as we thought we were safe, someone threw an egg from a car and hit PK on the side of her head. I thought it was a fucking litterbug throwing their juice out of their car and hitting someone, but no, dudes were lobbing eggs out onto the sidewalks. Awful end to what was a pretty good evening otherwise.

I got home and finished the skirt waistband and attached some hooks and eyes (might re-do those in the future, we'll see how I feel about it) and good thing I measured the waistband one inch longer than initially planned because the way I made the skirt, I underestimated how much for the waistband. I don't do shaped waistbands, and work with straight ones, so it can get a bit weird. I might try shaping my skirt segments next time. Anyway, some pictures of it!

in the fridge:
- cookie dough, this time with Crisco instead of butter. apparently this gives a famous amos like texture. I'm not holding my breath but hey, there will also be peanut butter chips mixed in with my usual chocolate chips
- ragout made with the leftover (failed) bak kut teh with lamb pieces. except this ragout is even thicker because it will be made into krokets! i've got to buy breadcrumbs but i'm very much looking forward to this.

finished:
- ranajit guha's dominance and hegemony
- arjun appadurai's modernity at large

working on:
- Cheah Pheng's Spectrality of Nations

also read:
- holocaust for hire which is a silly captain america novel that a prof gave away (along with a bunch of comics). it is from the 70s, has a grumpy but comedic white nick fury, an italian mafia, and some journalist couple who start of hating each other but end the story in love in the most contrived way possible. the red skull has got hold of some sonic gun technology and is using it to level cities and plans on using a satellite to annihilate the world, and of course captain america must stop him. what never fails to baffle me about these kinds of plots is how the scientists who develop the science who happen to be on the good guys' side never seem to think through the consequences of their work as they develop it. it's such an easy read, and it's a very slender book, so i think i finished it in an hour or so.

- when she woke by Hillary Jordan. it's a scifi retelling of the scarlet letter, a dystopia in which criminals undergo "melachroming" which means their skin is literally tinted to mark the severity of their crime, and since the main character committed the crime of murder as she had an abortion (it's also a super fundie setting) she is sentenced to be a "red". it's still a pretty fucking racist world but there's only a couple of characters of color. the structure of the book is pretty straightforward with its five-act, and thru it a transformation of the MC's romantic love for her lover that forestalls a happy ending together. there's a "feminist" group that gets women who have been melachromed red for abortion out of the states into Canada, and helps provides abortions. it's generally a very fast read but idk, while it's def a condemnation of christian fundamentalism, with an exploration of how even a loving family can bring a child up believing some fucked up shit that only leads to tragedy, i don't think it goes far enough and at the end of the day it's still about the main character trying to get rid of the stigma of being a Red. It doesn't match up with the interesting work that scarlet letter does, but then I read it when i was very young and from what i understood of it, hester subverts the stigma of the scarlet letter, appropriating it and making it an emblem not of "adultery" but of "absolution" and she lives her life.

reading:
- MISTERI ANAK JAGUNG which i gather is about an indonesian migrant living in someplace called "urbana, america" and about two chapters in i kind of got bored. i'm still planning on finishing it! it just will take longer than i expected

I bought a new small shovel yesterday to facilitate digging up a part of my garden, and my arms are noodle-y as a result. I think I have to do it again next week too--there're a lot more leaves. The problem is that there's a lot of little woodchip mulch so I have to sort them out because I don't want to accidentally bury them. Unfortunately I don't know where to put them for now.

The neat thing is, I figured out a way to harvest the worm castings in the corner of the garden! I bought a mesh pen holder. The holes are small enough that worms won't get sifted through (even the baby worms) (although certainly worms can push themselves through if they want to; one of them did.... since the hole is so small it was wiped clean of dirt, bringing to mind the image of a striving penis) and it also leaves behind other rocks and stuff that I don't really want... I managed to harvest half a bucket of very clean castings to use as soil amendment for the hole I dug.

I THINK my daffodils are growing back? I can't tell for sure--haven't looked to closely, but it would be nice if at least one bulb came back and gave me some daffodils!

I was going to take a walk this morning but I stayed up late to read Susan Forward's book on Toxic Parents. It was a good book, very helpful. I think I might send it along to my brother and dad just to see what happens.

Also, used my crockpot for the first time ever yesterday! Last night. I forgot that crockpots are used for food that take forever to cook. So I started at 5pm, and got impatient, started another thing of pork rib soup, and today I have more pork rib and beef stew. Nom! It's enough to last me for days, I think. And it didn't blow up despite my leaving it on all night! Which I guess is the point; I'm just so nervous around cooking things. Anyway... yay!

Yesterday I got a couple of folks into a chatroom with me to watch some movies. We got through The King of Beggars, Care Bears (the 1985 one), Phantom Tollbooth, and Cinderella (Rodgers and Hammerstein, the one with Brandy).

I also made myself some pork rib soup! Using the new Chinese herbs I bought from the store! It was delicious.... I hadn't realized just how much I missed their taste in my soup. I use the leftover soup to cook rice too. If I'm careful then the rice isn't too salty.

Today I got an email from Nalo, last minute invite to her "at home" and she sent it to a wrong address (people sometimes assume that Jaymee is my legal name and thus in addresses that assign first and last names in the username). So I got to hang out with her, and David and Dr. Latham. I've never hung out with Dr. L at close quarters before! It was nice hanging out with them for a while, and Dr. L gave me a ride home too. Everyone's moving to L.A.--Dr. L, Nalo, and a couple other profs.

Tomorrow TX and I will be heading to the grocery store again... I promised her steamed fish :D Very excited. But I need some equipment for it though, so I'll pick them up at the store. Whole catfish, nom.

I also found this terrific recipe for bak kut teh! Every other recipe I've found so far suggests getting bak kut teh pre-mixed spice packets, which I can't really find here, so I figured I'd find out what's in the packet and make it from scratch. I've got three out of the list there. I really appreciate how the recipe has the Chinese name, the pronunciation, the scientific name AND the English name. Gonna try it with the rest of the pork ribs I've got, and if it works, well, YAY, that is a food thing I know that my dad doesn't :P

At the rate I'm cooking it might be really worth my while to move out and find some roommates so I'm not stuck eating my food all the time!