jhameia | Recent Entries

So I've been reading in bed, on my phone. That's going pretty okay.

Today, I went to campus, and joined a Moltres raid on the way there. On the way back home, Lewis texted me, saying he was done teaching, so I told him I'd be down to go raiding some more if he had a car. He does, so, we go downtown, we join a Lugia raid, then move over to a Zapdos raid. We wander around spinning stops, come across a couple who had raided with us, and decide to head down to Jurupa Valley for a Moltres. We have to hang out a while, because people are taking time to get there, but with 8 people, we get the Moltres. Then as a group, we head out to an Articuno raid, where we join another group, and make it a raid of 19 people.

I got 4 out of 5 legendaries. Pretty good streak thus far. Lewis finally has a couple of legendaries in his 'dex, too.

When I got home, I decide, well, the sun's going down, but the water might still be warm, so I head out for a swim (this is around 6.40pm). And, well, not only is the sun going down, but the air is WINDY, and the temperature's dipped under 30'c, so the water is warmer, and just, brrrrr.... it's cold enough that I decide to do three sets of 6 laps, which brings my personal best up to 24 laps. Someone else also swam, he came in later, but left earlier. I was gonna skedaddle home right after getting out of the water but it was SO COLD I leapt into the hot tub nearby instead to warm up. It's kinda awkward being in a hot tub with someone else there who you're not talking to!!!

So, yay personal best, but, dammit, my dinner is so fucking late as a result =/ I really must get my day moving earlier so I can eat at actual meal times.

Today I did a rare thing: I had rice porridge for the first time in a while, with some spam, and for dinner I went to McDonald's, about two blocks away. Apparently it's been there a while and got refurbished? IDK. I tried out the touchscreen menu thing and ordered food without talking to anybody. This is how I found out that it is possible to get only FOUR pieces of chicken nuggets, not the 10 on the main menu, not the 6 I grew up with. So that is what I did. I also treated myself to a chocolate milkshake, but alas, it was too sweet to be really satisfactory.

It was also really cold inside, where the cushioned seats were, so bleh. I went to sit outside on the patio for a while and that was nice, but blah, the seats were not comfy. So much for trying to get some book reading or writing done.

I really should try to get out to campus tomorrow, maybe do a hike (and see if I can get a clipping of my favourite rosebush while I'm out there). I need to clear out my office some more too.

Still no work from my adviser on the state of my dissertation. I hope it's not because it's too much garbage to wade through.

I'm otherwise feeling pleased because I finally finished reading a couple of back issues laying in my e-reader, and am now going to read the August Lightspeed issue. I'm a bit tired from staring at the screen a lot and should try to figure out some better reading habits. But the rest of my room is overwhelming (or boring) to look at (I keep thinking I need more containers or whatever). I don't like looking out the window because it's so fucking bright. Gaaahhh IDK.

Last night Emily called me because I felt particularly moody and we chatted for several hours as we took our respective walks. I have discovered it is possible to run Pokemon Go while on the phone in this way.

I swam 18 laps today in under an hour! I feel ready to try for 21 next time ^^

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.

So.

I was supposed to swim yesterday, except on Sunday night, I struggled to get to 200 pages and the conclusion was just so fucking hard, partly because I don't understand conclusions, and partly because the things I wanted to say in my conclusion sounded stupid. I did get to 200 pages, and then decided to spend a bit of time putting together the Works Cited list, which involved copy-pasting a LOT of very tiny footnotes, and it was highly annoying. But I kept thinking "well, just a little bit more!" and by the time I had collated it (minus some data, because I've not been consistent with using Zotero, and some of my books are left on campus), it was 6am.

So when I went to get a final drink of water, I exclaimed an expletive at how BRIGHT it was outside, and went to sleep, for about three hours. Woke up feeling crappy still, had more meltdown fits, then realized I had edits for my introduction and second chapter still untouched! So I had another crying fit and sat down and tried to work some more. Slept some more, then begged for help from a friend, and felt better. I wrote a couple of really workable paragraphs, and got through the rest of the introduction edits mostly okay.

Today I worked on Chapter 2 edits, with a nice 4-hour long break to go to lunch with Lindsay which also involved going to get some dessert, so I got some cake from the sugar-free bakery, covered with chocolate mousse.

I also went swimming! The SKY was gloriously CLOUDY and it was still warm out, and I thought, when am I ever going to get a chance to swim when it's warm and cloudy out like this again?? And it might rain! Even better! It started raining around my 8th lap, and I kept going to Lap 18. It was so great. First time that it was warmer in the pool than out. What an interesting experience. I hope it happens again.

Finally checked my email to send my adviser what I currently have only to see she's asked me to take a couple more days so I can stop feeling crummy about my conclusion. (Any advice on how to write dissertation conclusions will be muchly appreciated.) She also has this thing against ending sentences with prepositions. I don't really know why this is such a big deal, but I guess I should comb through the rest of the diss looking for such things.

I looked into getting a SPI Belt, and hopefully one will arrive in a few days. Maybe I'll go to a Target and buy a Pokemon Go Plus; the battery seems to run about a month with intense use, and since I'll only be using it for exercise, it might be worth it.

I meant to get to campus earlier, but there was a Lugia raid across my house so I went to join it. I did make a sandwich, though, with the spreadable ham and cheese. Wrapped it in wax paper and took it with me to campus, and I ate it, and it was delicious.

I wrote 7 pages of conclusion, am aiming for the whole 12 before I go to bed tonight. I just don't know what else to say. I took another break at 4-ish to join another Articuno raid by the Psychology building.

I got home around 6.40, fried some fish, and then went walking at 7.30-ish (coulda been 7.40; either way I was back at 9pm). It was still a little light out so I could walk all the way to Box Springs Mountain Reserve, although, the nice thing is, there is a streetlight there now so it felt less creepy.

But really, one and a half hours walking is just not doing it for me anymore, it takes SO LONG!!!! It IS about 5km, though, so maybe I'll make 5k running my next exercise goal? I just want to be able to not have to take so long going up the hill and back.

I got zero writing done in the morning. I had such visions of waking up early to go to campus and working until afternoon. I even dug out my sandwich grill to bring a lunch to school.

Alas, I tossed and turned when I turned in at 12.30am with horrid depressive anxious thoughts, had a crying fit, and who knows what time I actually slept, but waking up at 6am was not happening. And then I was so tired I frittered the morning away.

I went to have lunch with YL, her last day here in the States for who knows how long. Had like, five mozza sticks. Afterwards, I went to Starbucks to work, and finished my fourth chapter, so yay. I twiddled with pagination and footnotes before going home. I'm at 188 pages, out of the targeted 200! So now, a 12-page conclusion, sigh.

I swam 18 laps today. Wasn't going to, but I was at 15, and then decided, what the heck, let's up it to 18. I think I still did it within the 40 minutes I was in the pool for. My arms and knees were a bit hurty but that might not be from the swimming. My arms have been hurting a lot lately because of the computer work.

Stuff came in the mail today: my graduation pin which I'd left in the rental gown (the clip part is busted); the SUNVAULT anthology (gave it to YL since she hadn't received her copy); and red lacy Bandalettes! I like 'em, they're super cute, even with shorts. I may need more short shorts just for an excuse to wear them, ha.

In my Forest app, I unlocked a new tree, the gingko tree, which is one of the more attractive trees in the app thus far. I've been using Forest a lot. I find I'm most productive away from the computer with social media. I'm going to handwrite some conclusion-esque things and see how that goes.

So, pretty productive day! I went to Starbucks around 9.30am, and hung out there until 12.30pm. I think it really helped to be outside the house in a public space surrounded by people. I got a lot of writing done, and the chapter end is in sight. Was hoping to be done with it by tonight, but my afternoon nap stretched longer than expected.

I went for my evening walk at 7pm instead of the usual 9pm. By the time I got to the top of Blaine St., it was still light enough that I could walk all the way to Box Springs Mountain Reserve, which I usually don't get to, because it's not very well-lit at night so it looks vaguely scary. (I get a lot of flak for walking in the evenings after sunset because girl and all that but I still do have SOME sense of self-preservation.) The mountain was really nicely lit up by the sunset, too, which I rarely look at. I really ought to look into running up there, though, because hour-and-a-half walks are just... too long.

On the way home, I ran into Jose from Hispanic Studies, and we chatted a bit while I petted his dog. It surprises people, turns out, that I have diabetes, because to most people I seem to live a really active and healthy life. Which, I guess, yeah, compared to most grad students I know, I kinda do. But I'm not really THAT outgoing.

Anyway, maybe sugar is NOT the problem, because at Starbucks I treated myself to a whoopie pie with no ill effects. Then what was my problem at Coco's? The french fries? IDK.

Success! I broke a machine needle, but I finally pried the SIM card slot out of my Xiaomi phone! And transferred my stuff over into the new Samsung. I'm not a fan of the UI--it's too chunky for my liking, but the other alternative were too-small icons. Argh! I'm also not crazy about being forced to have a page specifically for contacts. I've been messing with the arrangements of apps, but there are so many decisions to be made. So I've been working instead on restoring access to my stuff and trying to remember and reset passwords left right center. But! New phone! I bought a bunch of phone cases to celebrate.

I also did a lot of grocery-shopping: bought bone-in chicken and fish. I usually parcel out the chicken into individual ziplock bags, marinating them individually (and with a different mixture of stuff) and freezing them so it's easier to cook just ONE piece of chicken at a time. I decided I'd try to do the same with fish as well. This means leaving the fish to dry for a bit, so now my kitchen smells like raw fish. Hopefully it'll pay off. I bought a bunch of Good Thins and flatbread crackers, apparently Spam now has a BACON flavour, and also some spreadable ham, because I've never seen it before. Also garlic sourdough, which I regret because it's really salty. I made some beef stroganoff and used that to make lasagna (with alfredo sauce, and refried beans, and cheese), so I have meals for the next six days.

There was a bit of stroganoff left, so I put it on two slices of bread. I got weirdly full after eating one piece, though? And I had a cherry. I didn't get hungry again until 4 or 5pm. I don't know, this is weird.

No stomach troubles today. I really do think stomach troubles come when I consume some outright sugary stuff.

I also got 15 (maybe 16, I lost count at some point) laps in. I think I swam faster this time? I'll keep to 15 when I swim this Saturday, and next week I'll up the ante to 18. I need to do a bit more strength training though. Tomorrow I'll pop into the exercise room of my complex and check out the machines that they've brought in since I was last in there (which was something like two years ago). I'm thinking of getting like an arm band or waist band for my phone so I can jog with it, and apparently Pokemon Go Plus can be had now and is not some magic treasure anymore. So, I don't know, I'll look into that, maybe.

This has taken me away from dissertating. I am a bad grad student. But I did manage to get out to the University Village concert and get some writing done. Perhaps that is what I'll do tomorrow; find some outdoors and be there and write. I did also start formatting my dissertation for submission. I only have one section left to write, and got started on it, then it's conclusion, and MAYBE I'll have time to see what my advisor said about the introduction and chapter 2.

Nothing much new to report aside from my brain's asinine refusal to produce new words and re-reading old ones instead.

I did apply for the Graywolf internship, sent it off this morning.

This morning I went to Coco's to work, had horrible bowel movements, at the tail end of which Jose called to see if I was down to join a Lugia raid, and of course I was. Four raids in, I've got a Lugia and another Articuno.

Latter half of the day, after a two hour nap (WHY) I started outlining the analysis for the final novel, which I'm excited about. I'm gonna sleep with the CPAP tonight and see if I can concentrate better tomorrow. The deadline looms. I'm vaguely terrified.

The walk up and down Blaine Street feels shorter, although I'm sure it is still taking me the same amount of time (I walked out around 8.30 and got back around 10; 1 and a half hours seems pretty normal for me on that stretch). This makes me wonder if I should try to up my game a little and do a little jog instead of brisk walking. It is kind of harder to play Pokemon Go while jogging though.

ETA: OH! My new phone arrived! I still can't get the SIM cards out of my Xiaomi because I don't have a pin strong enough (I don't really have any earring studs I'm willing to sacrifice) but it's here!

Well, I took a hydrocoxine last night, and it threw me for a loop in which I couldn't wake up early enough for my liking, and was really groggy. My body felt really heavy, and I'm still feeling the effects this afternoon. But! It was otherwise a decent day: my friend Jose texted me around 1pm about a Legendary raid, and there was a crowd of people when I got there! I feel I should have been a bit more sociable, but I was not trying to evade my dissertation today. And we defeated it! And I got the Articuno! Yay!

My doctor also had good news for me today: my blood sugar level, which had been at 7.5, way at the top of the Type 2 diabetes range, has scaled down to 5.7. My doctor is very impressed; he's never seen such a fast turnover before. If there ever was a moment for the Glow of Virtue, this was totally it. My bad cholesterol level is on the high end, but it's balanced out by the good cholesterol, so yay I guess. I'm hoping to knock the 5.7 down to 5 by the time I see him again in September. My insurance is until the 24th, so that's enough time for one more blood test.

I am considering buying weights, just a couple of dumbbells, for building arm strength. I'm going to sit on this for a while and see how I feel in a couple of weeks. I'm going to dig out some unused sheets and try using those as exercise mats, though. My brother uses a folded old blanket.

Not swimming today; the sky's too cloudy and I don't like swimming in a cold pool. I guess I SHOULD get used to that, though. It's so nice, so I lament not taking advantage of the cloudy sky to go for a morning hike. Maybe I can do that tomorrow!

I had such dreams today! That I would go to campus early in the morning, spin Pokestops and replenish my Pokeballs, and catch pokemon and take a long enough walk to hatch more eggs!

Except, I went to bed at like 3am, so this was not a thing that could happen. By the time I got to campus, it was 11am, and dissertating was derailed in favour of writing an application for an internship that I think will be fascinating as an opportunity. At some point a friend of mine came to campus to help me take down an Articuno. We found three other people to join us, but even then, we couldn't take it down. And my battery was dying, so I couldn't play the rest of the day. Fickle phone!

I left campus late, had a late lunch, and then slept for like three hours. Couldn't even bring myself to take my evening walk. It's a little past midnight now and I am going to restore proper sleeping habits and good sleep hygiene so I can function tomorrow.

I will swim tomorrow. I will also try to see the doctor, or at least make an appointment. And I will pay my rent and request a lease renewal.

There are no Xiaomi service centers in the US. Sigh. I got instructions for backing up and factory resets, which I'm not sure is the solution because that sounds like a software issue? Anyway I backed up the phone but I don't actually know what that means.

By some miracle, though, the phone charged overnight.

I was up until very late last night though, so the morning was a bust. I slept much of the afternoon, but when I woke up, I got started at a very good clip, and I think this section is almost finished. I'm working out some more argumentation re: minor literatures, but after this I think I'm ready for the next section. I'm also inserting images into my first chapter, which will hopefully add some pagecount.

Fingers crossed!

Also there is a Pokemon Go event right now and I am STOKED and dropped ten bucks for incubators MASS HATCH YAAAAYYYY

I am at 8k words in this chapter. Unfortunately that is only 28 pages (including 2 more pages for images). I started at 11, stopped around 2, tried to work some more but left at 3.30. I have to figure out how to get a solid day's work done on campus when I need to eat =/ I could eat out all the time, I guess? But I don't really want to?

My Xiaomi is legit dying on me. I left it home, off, and I swear the battery ran down a little while I was gone. I wonder if it has to do with cycling cords around. I got a bit desperate, so even though I have a mini-USB port replacement on the way, I panicked, looked up some phones, and it turns out that Best Buy carries Samsung Galaxy J7s, DUAL-SIM with all the GSM bands I need. (My phone needs tend to be very simple: dual-SIM, all the GSM bands, FM radio.) The screen resolution isn't as good as the Xiaomi's (there are a lot of things the Xiaomi, by all accounts a cheaper inferior phone, has that the Galaxy does not) but honestly I don't care right now. Might still have to go to Batteries and Bulbs to switch over the SIM cards because I can't for the life of me figure out how to do it myself (UGH smartphone aesthetics are SO aggravating) but maybe this will be for the best? The phone itself was surprisingly cheap so I'm feeling pretty good about it.

I swam at least 15 laps today. Could have been 16, because I lost count somewhere. My brain is so scattered at the moment it felt like if I didn't keep repeating the lap number to myself as I swam, I'd forget it as soon as I hit the other side. I don't like that feeling.

Got out late, got to the office at 11-ish, and Emily wasn't free to write, so I had to plod along myself, which was hard. But after lunch, I got started on a really good clip. Inserted some pictures into my current chapter, and wrote more words. I'm a little over halfway of my second section, which makes me happy, and I'm thinking I might add in one more example? Right now I have six texts: three visual, three literary, and I'd like to add in an example that combines both. I'll keep plugging along and see where I'm at by the end of the weekend.

I REALLY wanted to go to the Nerds of Color meetup in San Diego tomorrow, but I don't think I can make it =( I'd need a place to stay, and it only just occurred to me that I could take a Greyhound down, but the times just don't work. SIGH!

Anyway it is 1am and I need to go to bed, blurgh.

My phone died overnight, having refused to charge without being babysat, so I decided, once it was charging merrily without my overnight but taking too long for my liking, that I would go to campus and do work without the phone. This turned out to be a very good thing indeed, because I wasn't tempted to watch it all the time. I've also logged out of most social media on my work computer, so that was nice too. Emily Jiang checked in with me around 11.30 for some writing, and that was nice too.

I still can't focus on the screen, it seems, so I switched to handwriting some paragraphs instead. This helped quite a bit. Except for some sentences here and there, I'm starting work on a new section, articulating the concept of minor literature in relation to multicultural steampunk.

I ate at the Getaway, taking laptop and writing book and pencil and eraser with me. Had a couple of slices of a pizza, packed the rest, got back to my office, and coughed up a couple more paragraphs. Then I went home.

Swam 16 laps today. Was gonna stick to 15, but thought I could push on just once more. I'm feeling, as

oracne calls it, the Glow of Virtue, which I promptly ruined by eating a sponge cake. I finished my remaining sausages, too. I haven't heard back about the results of my blood test from yesterday, but I assume I'll hear back by the end of the week, and if there's anything big, the doctor will call me (which is what he did last time). But I'm really crossing my fingers that my blood sugar levels have dropped.

I have been very good and did not text anybody today.

I submitted a poem. It's been a while since I wrote a poem I felt good about, so that's nice. It might be a bit too sentimental, IDK, I like its tweeness, but maybe it's too schmoopy? Oh well.

I'm gonna try to make it to campus tomorrow for some more writing by hand, and I think I will leave the phone home again so I don't get anxious around it. Until my mini-USB port replacement comes, I'll use it as little as possible so I don't keep freaking out over recharging it and possibly aggravating the problem even more.

So, because I have no brainspace, I completely forgot to take down the address of the ophthalmologist I was supposed to go see, Googled last night, and took a Lyft to the wrong place. I had to take another Lyft, this time to the right place. It was a weird procedure. Lots of flashing lights and hooey eyedrops. On the bright side, the doctor says that my eyes look all right, no problems with the veins whatsoever.

On the not so bright side, my eyes are still dilated and my pee looks weird (because they have to inject dye into your bloodstream so that inspection of the back of the eye is possible). I have a headache as a result.

The eye specialist I went to was near Brockton Arcade so I meandered over to the pet supply store to have a look-see. I sighed at the dog collars, because I miss Puppergeist, and I regret giving him up.

I got home, had a couple of pieces of chicken, then went to campus for another doctor's visit. And I have to say, while I think Dr. Tran is a wonderful doctor otherwise, the first to take my complaints on concentration seriously enough that he suggested ADD as a possible problem (the diabetes was the first thing he felt capable of looking at), he was a bit too enthused about my weight loss for my comfort. OK, yeah, 15 pounds since I started (late April), but I don't know if that's such a huge accomplishment when my concentration is still shot to hell, and I could use all that time spent exercising and worrying about my food on the diss. Then again, the exercising and dieting is a decent way to procrastinate, I guess.

Anyway, I had to make calls and whatnot for a psychiatrist appointment, and the first available time is the end of August. EW! I need to defend by then! So, I'm kind of pissed that it's taken this long for this to even come up.

Tonight I'll be handwriting some of my dissertation, I think, because I just can't stare at the screen so much anymore. I've got a whole paragraph. It feels nice.

I also finished the sugar-free cookies I got last weekend, whoops.

oh, my heart, you are not okay
you are not okay
lock yourself up again
that was safer
also less disruptive to
other daily operations

oh, stop making promises
that are not yours to make
i know that is what hope is:
crowns out of starlight
and petals dried in summer heat
blown away in the morning wind

you are too hungry to be exposed
one temptation and you are lost
if i do not cage you sooner
you will devour everything
and i do not care
to ingest more poison

In other news, I can't concentrate worth spit, I swam 15 laps today.

The Zagster station near my house (a parking lot by a sportsfield) had NO bikes today, so I walked to campus to scan a thing, then nabbed a bike near the closest residence to go to the bank and FedEx shop. This took a lot out of me, it seems.

=/ I don't know what to do with myself. I open all my files and stare at the words, and re-read everything I write, but somehow this is harder than it ought to be. It's very frustrating.

Because my brain will not concentrate today it veered into possible getting wheels of my own that is not a bicycle. I've been using the Zagster bikeshare here, but my knees apparently hate me and ache when I've been cycling anything over gear 5 and uphill or even just level ground. I don't know if it's possible for knees to build strength? Do they? Maybe I just need to keep at it and they will stop complaining like little mofos eventually?

But of course bicycles can only take you so far, and I have anxieties surrounding driving, so I looked into motorcycling classes, and turns out that there is a course serving Riverside where people learn how to ride and it's accredited so getting a California motorcycling license is possible, too. Even when I was a teenager I wanted to ride a motorbike over driving a car (even as I dutifully went for driving lessons, which were mostly fine, until a panic attack during my driving exam, and then a little after almost running over my own dog, and then a growing fear of accidentally dying in a box).

I however can barely fathom spending hundreds of dollars the way any vehicle would demand of a person, especially on a irregular basis for maintenance and gas.

I asked my sewing teacher about her bike riding experience (she rode a motorbike for like 30 years, and was part of an older-lady biker gang) but she hasn't ridden in some ten years. She still had some recommendations for me. I looked up used motorbikes on Craigslist and most Honda Rebels seem to be from ten years ago, ranging in the $1500 - $3000 range. I think I might be able to handle that? But then, one doesn't appear to take up motorbiking here in the States to save money.

Still, the thought of having motorized wheels that could get me from city to city, something I could do road trips with, is very tempting. If I snag a job for the fall, I'll definitely look into getting lessons, and see from there. There's an accredited training course, which looks cool (and there's a mix of men and women among the instructors) and affordable. It all seems very convoluted to my public-transit-loving brain, but maybe I can do it?

Yesterday after a long day of doing nothing and feeling terrible about it, I went to check out the University Village free concerts. I'd wanted to sit upstairs on the balcony overlooking the concert, but a security guard told me I couldn't, new management, so sorry, bla bla bla.

I did a lot of paperwork today. I scanned and printed (using the Sproul Hall printers for the first time ever) and sent my OPT application forms off to the international student center so they can nod and approve of it and tell me that yes, I can send it off to immigration.

Lindsay came to get me and we went for lunch at Best Thai. Been a while since I ate there. We then went to look for dessert- she wanted boba tea, and I wanted something sugar-free. Turns out that the store her students had recommended her and the store we Googled for sugar-free desserts were in the same plaza, conveniently.

The dessert place is called The Thinnery, and it bills itself as a sugar-free bakery, specifically for diabetics, and folks with heart conditions, weight watchers and just plain ol' folks watching their sugar, I guess. There was only one man working there--the only one left of his family doing the business (out of 31 years!) and he'd been cleaned out earlier, so I had to wait a bit to get the chocolate mousse brownie I wanted. It was very good. There were also sugar-free cookies, and I got those too (which also turned out to be very good). And a heat-damaged box of chocolates for half-price so I ganked that too.

Lindsay and I decided to go to Ontario Mills for some shopping. I'd been thinking about how most of my clothes fit but not well. I'd been staying away from close-sitting clothing for years because I have weird body issues (also because grad school left me with no energy to care about my appearance beyond professional), but these days I kind of crave short shorts, close fitting, with pockets, things I can wear to go for my long walks with.

We went to Uniqlo first, and I ended up with two pairs of gym shorts, a pair of dressier shorts that almost matched the one I wore into the store except one size down, a long skirt with POCKETS, and a bra. Not shabby. We also stopped by a store with the CUTEST makeup brushes and I just... couldn't... not buy a set. I don't even use makeup that often, but I really want to? I shall make an attempt. Of course I say that every couple of years...

We spent a LONG time in that mall.

I wanted to go swimming, but there were just too many people in the poo, and my period is still going, so I'm going to try tomorrow. But I also decided to try organizing my makeup basket. I think I have been successful but it also means I have to organize, like, everything else around it. I'm now sneezing because I've been touching things that have not been handled in a long time. I had to throw out a bunch of things, like a foundation that was the only really waterproof stuff I'd found, super useful when I did a lot of water shoots around Halifax. But now it just looks weird and ashy on me, so it needed to go. I should test a bunch of the eyeshadow too, though, but my face feels raw from all that testing the foundation and washing it off and raw so I don't feel like it.

Lindsay also remarked on how visible the weight I've lost is. I hadn't really been paying attention to it, since I'm more focused on learning to just eat less and get more movement in. Ideally I'd also be working towards a more toned body but my metabolism and lifestyle and general genetics do not incline my body that way, so oh well. But it got me wondering about how much I've lost since I started the diet and exercise thing in May. So I started pulling out things to wear that I haven't in a long time because the last time I tried, they were really uncomfortable to wear, or I couldn't button it up, or something.

Turns out it's enough that I can fit a BUNCH of old things I thought I'd have to give away. A Lip Service goth jacket I haven't worn in five years can now be buttoned up. It's still suuuuuper snug, especially on the upper arms (because goths always have thin arms I guess) but I can squish most of myself in now. I'm really impressed. My favourite gray skirt which had been too tight for a couple of years now sits comfortably around my waist again, which is really nice. Who knows what else I'll achieve. Hopefully not the need to buy a new wardrobe, though. There are still things I'd like to give away; I'll have things to bring to next WisCon's clothing swap.

Reaching Out

The rest of the world is always there

(no subject)

(no subject)

manuscript in!

meltdowns and stuff

(no subject)

15 to 18

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

7.5 - 5.7

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

forms and calls and forms and calls and forms and calls

Poetry: "rebuke"

(no subject)

Vehicular Ponderings

(no subject)

Profile

October 2017

Syndicate

Most Popular Tags

Page Summary

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags