sennashi_dorei

The treadmill

should provide e nough voltage to stop my heart.

gonna hafta cut through this thick insulation though.

literally everythingis a pain in the ass

Current Mood: tired

vvalkyri

Which before I explain I should offer condolences to those who knew the person in Bostonish who recently died. I did not, other than somewhat by reputation and very much in passing, but she was very special to many people and seemed like someone it was yet again my loss to not know.

But this post is inspired by my mild befuddlement at just how much Rusty Old American Dream by David Wilcox makes me cry.

Some of us on the mutual Aid group are meeting at dew drop inn later tonight for a planning meeting. And someone referenced a song called Uneasy Rider that mentions a Dew Drop Inn (its lyrics are quite the ride) and something about the first lines gave me the earworm.

So I brought up the YouTube and I was singing along and started crying. And then later grabbed the lyrics to drop back into that chat and sang it without the YouTube and was back to sobbing.

I certainly didn't get enough sleep last night. But come to think of it I kind of remember this song has often done this. It's probably easy enough to figure out which lyric.

In other news it's been nice out today and I was up till 6:00 a.m. because someone called at 3:00 when they saw I was up because I sent something to a group chat and I guess that was helpful because I did actually almost finish unpacking from Presidents Day weekend. But it was less helpful because when I finally managed to get off the phone at 5:00 I was quite awake.

I had had tentative plans with happy that I had forgotten about and then remembered and then sent him a note at 5:00 saying hey I'm not in bed yet even and then his meeting ran late enough that he messaged right about the same time I actually opened my eyes and then we made our way to falafel and came back and I'm sad that falafel Incorporated is no longer carrying their vegan shawarma because they've started doing chicken shawarma and they had already had chicken shawarma but I think they're just trying to keep their menu very narrow. But I expressed my dismay and then someone else came in and is vegan herself and doesn't like falafel so she left and did not buy anything and I noted that maybe the people behind the counter might want to keep a running tally as to how many people Express dismay and how many people then leave without buying something. Their vegan shawarma was amazing.

But the falafel salad was also good.

And then somehow the last two and a half hours have gone poof. Some of it has been trying to follow up on maybe getting some kites made since No Kings 3 is the same day as the Cherry blossom kite festival and one of the events will be pretty nearby.

And then there was trying to signal boost a call for people to call their Congress critters and complain about dismantling department of education and trying to shove special education in with like department of Labor.

And then I'm not even sure.

I'm kind of tempted to go to Blues tonight because I like both of the people DJing but then that complicates matters for the earlier part of the evening.

And I'm also just so exasperated with kind of everything of late.

And how is it March?

cosmolinguist

After two days of utter misery at work, I was amazed that I actually got to finish on time -- I had not been expecting to!

The unstoppable force of my executive dysfunction met the immovable object of a deadline to respond to the Government's call for evidence on Developing the automated vehicles regulatory framework.

Ugh. I am so disgusted by the whole concept of self-driving cars that it was...well, not the only reason it's difficult to write about, but it was definitely one of them.

In other car-related news, I'm always delighted to read that other people are noticing the same things I am: not only are car headlights too damn bright, but cars are too damn big.

...while bigger cars may be safer for their occupants, critics insist they are considerably less safe for other road users. "Whether you're in another car [or] a pedestrian, you're more likely to be seriously injured if there's a collision with one of these vehicles," argues Tim Dexter, vehicles policy manager at T&E. He is also concerned about the implications for cyclists.

Research carried out in 2023 by Belgium's Vias Institute, which aims to improve road safety, suggested that a 10cm (3.9in) increase in the height of a car bonnet could increase the risk of vulnerable road users being killed in a collision by 27%. T&E also highlights concerns that high bonnets can create blind spots.

This is also something I've read about in the U.S., thanks to Victoria Scott:

If, in the span of one year, 18 fully-loaded Boeing 747s crashed with no survivors, we’d reappraise airspace. We’d question how we build airplanes and how we train pilots. We would recognize this as a failure of the system, not as individual mistakes of 18 pilots. Our roads should be no different.

The good news is that we have sensible solutions in plain sight: lower speed limits, redesign intersections, build roads that prioritize pedestrians and cars equally, and most importantly, reward automakers for building smaller vehicles with better visibility. The bad news is these require some sacrifice from drivers. Safer roads have lower speed limits—likely enforced by ticketing in one form or another. These roads also require more concentration to drive on. SUVs and pickups would need to revert back to 90s sizing, and all of our cars would need to shrink. These are all a hard sell in America, admittedly, but until they happen, we keep losing lives needlessly.

I genuinely love cars, and I’ve owned some big trucks. I understand the appeal of high speeds and lifted rigs, and I’m loath to give them up. But even I can’t accept a future wherein 7,500 are killed each year, especially when the solutions are so tangible and the rewards so massive. I’d accept small sacrifices if thousands more could live decades longer. I hope the rest of America agrees.

anais_pf posting in

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disappointed_lesbian

Stomach cramps, gonna post instead of studying.

Been slacking on the iron intake, so I've been cold again these past two or three days. Tired of this bullshit. Still having hot flashes though. I get cold and hot at the same time.

I almost never have cavities. I think I ended up with cavities because of all the coconut sugar I've been eating. I don't normally eat sugar. I'm going back to sweetening my oatmeal with applesauce and fruit juice. When I have chocolate oatmeal, I'll use the low-cal stevia sweetener. This should save me some calories.

The pih around my mouth seems to be fading, but I'm a little afraid that it's just my imagination. Aside from a fading mark between my eyebrows, the rest of my face doesn't look much different.

Korean is starting to take over my life a little bit, so I need to pull back. I need to focus on my future instead of getting too engrossed in a hobby.

I got through a backlog of Mandarin flashcards last night. Most of the cards that were in the learning stage had to be downgraded to basically new cards because I had forgotten them. I studied these 'new' cards after breakfst this morning, which is when I used to study new Mandarin flashcards upuntil about a week ago, and it felt kind of nice. It felt productive. More productive than trying to read with the pop-up dictonary. Maybe I just needed a break; maybe I'll go back to it, perhaps with fewer new cards per day. I was hellbent on learning about sixteen new terms per day, and that took a lot of time.

Not sure what to do about the sleep. The amount of melatonin I take doesn't seem to matter. Tonight I'm trying some glycine, which tends to keep me drowsy all day, but I had a tiny amount.

Thinking about my tentative plans to study applied math, I've come to the conclusion that I don't want to help anyone build anything. I want the world to de-industrialize, not build/erect/engineer more shit that's going to pollute the environment, displace people, or destroy. I can't think of what else I might be working on with an applied math degree. It's essentially an engineering tool.

On the other hand, I cannot think of anything else that's both minimally interesting to me and a source of easily marketable skills. STEM shit is always in demand, and I've had so much trouble finding work, I want to make the job search easier on myself.

Software engineering is an option, but I'm honestly not that good at it (although great compared to the average person), and I'd end up in a support role for some shit that's already been built and is making life more difficult for people or polluting the environment, for example, these garbage modern websites that track users all over the internet and secretly send data to Facebook or some type of fossil-fuel eating vehicle. I thought about going into aerospace programming, but aerospace vehicles are some of the most polluting things in existence, plus I don't know how easy it would be to find a job with a company that is not involved in defense aka war aka killing and destroying.

It would be great if I could find work doing something to make the world a better place. Outside of medicine and education, however, there aren't many jobs that make the world a better place. What would make the world a better place is convincing people to stop destroying the earth, other animals, and each other, or preventing those things. Not a lot of ways to generate money from that, however.

I think the closest I could come is some type of environmental science, which I don't think I would be good at or even terribly interested in. Plus, politicians and corporations, the biggest polluters of them all, don't necessarily listen to scientists. There's no way for me to be a scientist anyhow; it takes too much time and social bullshit. But perhaps some kind of support role.

I want to have sex with my endocrinologist so bad. I've been thinking about him a lot again lately.

I wonder how the environmental effects of the construction and disposal of electric car batteries compares to gas-powered car emissions. Electric cars were supposed to solve the problems caused by gas-powered vehicles. People wouldn't have to drive so much if cities weren't designed with shopping, workplaces, etc. so far away from residential areas and so spread out. But that's a difficult thing to fix because so many places would have to be torn down and rebuilt. If public transportation could be improved, it would become a viable alternative. The government would have to invest in it up front because all the people choosing to drive or carpool instead of taking public transportation are not paying fares, which would go towards improvement. The world is just such a mess.

And it's bedtime now.

Bottom line is that I don't want to get more qualifications just to continue to deal with the stress and poor job choices that currently characterizes my employment horizons. I want to do something peaceful, sustainable, healthy, something genuinely helpful, something I can feel good about.

Current Mood: undecided

vvalkyri

So I scroll back 14 days but if anything's important with you from before 14 days then I couldn't easily scroll back.

I don't even remember when it was I last posted. There's all sorts of things I've been highly annoyed about lately but haven't really been posting here. I just got back from steel City Blues which I'd sort of been debating whether I was going to or not and eventually decided literally the night before possibly even the day of.

I had a couple weeks of my leg being highly annoying and that finally finished in the aftermath of President's Day weekend, which was also very very good.

I bought a new phone right before President's Day weekend because my normal phone was busy rebooting itself constantly. And I hate this phone so much. Nothing is where it's supposed to be it's incredibly slow the system UI keeps crashing and I didn't come to the conclusion that I wanted to try to return it to Best buy until after the two weeks window for doing so and besides they were going to charge like a $50 restock fee. So bleh. I also am pretty sure that even though nominally I got all my messages to transfer they did not in fact transfer because I sent some birthday greetings to various people and I was like wait a second there should be some sort of message history there and indeed at least with one of them she had messages history...

Drove back from Pittsburgh yesterday and boy howdy was it not hugely clever or two opt for the not toll road. I spent time driving through clouds in the dark. On one lane needs direction roads which every so often actually had reflectors. Do not recommend.

I managed to host some acro in my lobby tonight, with the guy who's nice enough to let me base him and my next door neighbor.

I had done a very little bit of acro over President's Day weekend and otherwise it had been weeks and weeks. And I probably will be doing a blues class instead on Sunday and a friend who lives only a couple blocks away is moving to Alaska so I don't see myself going up to Laurel for acro on Saturday and besides there's the March for science and maybe I'll be there in a frog costume because oh right yeah I was part of that state of the Swamp Thing and I'm quite happy about it.

Last week was I went up to the Wilson building to be part of the free DC filling the hearing room for the MP d oversight hearing.

By the way, DHS is trying to buy a big Warehouse in Maryland where there's a number of different ones. Other places have been successful so far at making that not happen.

I really need to do better at not doing things by dictation

cosmolinguist

I listened to the Twins game against Puerto Rico this evening, which was happening while I was making dinner and at the gym.

I figured my Twinkies would get hammered; PR has lots of good players. But two of the best, Francisco Lindor and Carlos Correa, couldn't make the team for insurance reasons. Made me laugh that the lead-off hitter is another Minnesota Twin, Willi Castro. (Apparently he's not as good any more but I still have such a soft spot for him! There were other former Twins on this team too, Eddie Rosario is another that got mentioned fondly by the Twins radio guys, Kris and Dan.

The Twins actually won! 6-3. Good start by Zebby (phew), good game by Alan Roden (who I keep forgetting about; one of the many players they got in the fire sale last trade-deadline).

cosmolinguist

I am not surprised at all that someone is gonna try to primary Klobuchar. I'm only mildly surprised it's someone I know online because he's on the same fedi instance as me. I just know him as the Cookie Mom and now he's doing a new thing!

He's campaigning on abolishing the Department of Homeland Security, bringing our neighbors home, and not taking the support of the DFL base for granted.

larryhammer

Have His Carcase has one of the classic opening paragraphs of literature:

The best remedy for a bruised heart is not, as so many people seem to think, repose upon a manly bosom. Much more efficacious are honest work, physical activity, and the sudden acquisition of wealth. After being acquitted of murdering her lover, and, indeed, in consequence of that acquittal, Harriet Vane found all three specifics abundantly at her disposal; and although Lord Peter Wimsey, with a touching faith in tradition, persisted day in and day out in presenting the bosom for her approval, she showed no inclination to recline upon it.

That’s up there with Pride and Prejudice.

---L.

Subject quote from ABC, Jackson 5.

disappointed_lesbian

The dentist said the anesthesia would wear off in an hour. It's been two and a half hours since my dental appointment, and I'm still waiting. I think I've bitten my lip; there's a red mark on it that wasn't there before. I can feel the lip, but the sensation is off; it feels larger than it is, like it's in a spot that it shouldn't be in, or is swollen beyond it's normal size, but it doesn't look swollen in the mirror.

I've given myself another headache by going out for a walk after under-eating, so I came back from my walk early and now I'm having a small soup. I did some research on preventing fasting headaches (even though I'm not really fasting, just eating less than my body wants or less than my brain can handle I guess). I came across a suggestion to take electrolytes, but I don't think that's going to work. It seems like I would have tried that before, and that I failed, and I don't want to risk yet another headache by trying it.

The organization that offers the scholarship in Taiwan also offers one in south Korea. Because I like Korean and would enjoy speaking it well and want to get out of this country, I took a look at the scholarship. It's for only a ten-month long research project, not a full degree. The description mentioned that the research project should be relevant to S. Korea, and I thought that work on how to fix the country's shitty air quality would be quite relevant. I looked up dealing with the air in the country and came across this Reddit thread that makes it sound worse than I'd imagined:

https://old.reddit.com/r/teachinginkorea/comments/9yk273/what_is_it_like_living_in_south_korea_with/

Imagine never having had asthma before, then developing it after a short period of time in a new country. I would be pissed. I've read somewhere that s korea's transformation from a poor country into what it is today is admirable. I don't find it so admirable seeing as how the county has paid for that transformation with terrible air quality. It's better to be an unsophisticated agricultural society where people can breathe normally and enjoy seeing the sky without some filthy haze blocking their view. I hate that human health is considered less important than money and industrialization. The same goes for China. I think that seeing the sky is probably important for human health, and not just for sun exposure.

The latest in male sociopathy is the Alpine Divorce:

https://metro.co.uk/2026/02/28/alpine-divorce-chilling-breakup-trend-men-subjecting-partners-27139129/

Men abandoning their female partners in isolated places in the wilerness. One womon died of hypothermia after being abandoned on a freezing cold mountainside. Her garbage partner was charged with negligent manslaughter, but I read in another news report that he was given only five months suspended sentence.

That goddamned headache has messed up my mood, and it's worse even after I've eaten. Perhaps I'll treat myself to a frozen pizza. I've got to stop doing this shit to myself. I don't even have my migraine meds. So many headaches that I ran out before I could renew it.

I remember now why I was having espresso instead of black tea: I have to make the tea strong to reap the energizing benefits, and strong black tea tends to make me nauseous. I think the espresso is unhealthier, though, because it's roasted and therefore probably contains acrylamide, which is carcinogenic. I know that acrylamide is carcinogenic because signs in fast food restaurants say so, warning about fried foods.

I burned the crust of the first half of my pizza. I ended up eating the other half as well, so my headache is mostly gone.

I'm having a difficult time finding scholarships for studying in Taiwan. The Taiwanese government's scholarships don't pay enough and the u.s. one I've been planning on requires me to do a full degree that I'm not really terribly interested in. I'm not interested in classical Chinese; traditional Chinese literature might be interesting for like five minutes, but I don't want to study it.

Current Mood: rushed

glacier_kitty

Yesterday, after I got home, I had a big anxiety attack and just huddled under my weighted blanket and let everything out. Today I felt like a new woman! It's so awesome being mostly pain free! The dentist even called me to ask how I was doing, which was super cool..everyone's so nice there! I had a chiropractic adjustment too because I was very tense after the awfulness of last month, and the glasses place I go to still had the same frames, so I decided to get that pair too as a spare. I've definitely needed good luck after last month. I hope it continues!

Someone who was NOT having a good day was my coworker Christian..he seemed alright when I talked to him when he came in, but a little later I saw him slumped over sleeping and drooling a little. He jumped awake and Danae asked if he was ok, and his voice was slurred and "heavy," like he was tired. I asked him about family that's coming to visit him, it took him a minute and then he looked at me and said "hello!" I asked again and it took him a long time to answer, but he was saying things that didn't make sense, but he insisted he was ok. I went with Danae to another room and was like "he is definitely NOT ok!" Danae told him to call his sister (she's his main support in town), and when she answered, he couldn't think of Danae's name, which was VERY worrying. He hung up and his sister called back and I could hear her yell "DON'T HANG UP AGAIN!!" Danae drove him to the ER and his sister met them there. That was scary! It sounded like a mini stroke. Danae said she talked to Christian earlier and he sounded much better, but didn't ask about his diagnosis. They're keeping him overnight at the hospital, but hopefully he can go home tomorrow. Hopefully he'll get lots of rest and there will be no permanent damage!

( 3. When was the last time you did something reckless? )

numb3r_5ev3n

Part One
Part Two
Part Three
Part Four
Content warnings for everything awful, obviously.

BONUS: Flesh Simulator | Jeffrey Epstein's involvement in 9/11? How about the highly contested 2000 election results? Por Que No Los Dos?

EDIT: More on the origins of 4chan, and IGE and Steve Bannon's connection to 4Chan, /pol/, and the Epstein Web's influence over the culture wars.

It really does come down to "Jeffrey Epstein was angry about being very mildly punished and criticized for victimizing children and women. And over the next two decades, he threw all of his money, influence, and connections at building a world in which his kind of person would be protected and celebrated, instead of held accountable for their crimes. And to do this, he and his cronies (including Steve Bannon) exercised a lot of influence over the late 2000s-early 2010s internet via the Gamergate/~~"Redpill"~~ movement, and the culture wars that followed. Nearly 20 years later, he has largely succeeded, and all of this led to the election of Donald Trump. Qanon was a psyop employed to muddy the waters, and make anyone who talked about conspiracies involving child trafficking sound like a looney conspiracy theorist."

disappointed_lesbian

Hong Kong is rated caution level 2, 'exercise increased caution,' on the u.s. state department's website. 'Arbitrary enforcement of local laws, especially exit bans' is the reason. I don't know what the hell is an 'exit ban.' Do they prevent foreigners from leaving? That doesn't seem like it's in their best interest. Anyways, Hong Kong is out of the running. It's interesting that the Canadian website rates it 'Exercise a high degree of caution,' higher than the u.s. rates it.

https://travel.gc.ca/destinations/hong-kong

'You shouldn’t expect internet privacy.' lol. shithole county. Previously, I wasn't clear on Hong Kong's relationship with China. But I think I see now that they are too closely related.

I'm going to try again with Bhutan. Last time I looked into it, I ended up going in circles trying to find information about becoming a citizen or permanent resident. I think there is no official pathway, maybe an expat (I hate this word) who has a job there just keeps getting the employment visa renewed. That would be good enough for me. It's an unsure life but this life I'm living here is unsure. I feel reassured by the low cost of living in Bhutan, however. Like I could actually afford rent with my measly veteran's benefits. Assuming what I've read is accurate. It's difficult to find information on this country. In a way, that's a good thing: the place isn't crawling with 'expats' and won't be for the forseeable future. But it also puts more of a burden on me to figure things out.

I would do my schooling in Taiwan and then try to have Bhutan as a back-up plan, hoping China doesn't invade or at least doesn't get violent for the three-year duration of my master's degree program. Unless I get a remote job and can stay in Taiwan on a digital nomad visa and take Mandarin lessons instead of doing the master's degree.

Bhutan is in need of IT workers, so maybe I should work on developing some computer skills. Visiting costs a hundred bucks a day, so that's something that won't be happening for a while. That's ok; it's good that they prioritize their citizens and environment.

I didn't sleep at all last night. How long can this go on?

Apparently the Trump administration is now at war with Iran. Perhaps 'war' is not the best thing to call it; I'm not sure that Iran is fighting back. Yet. This is the world when men are in charge: endless violence.

According to cnn, Trump decided to strike because Iran continues its nuclear weapons program, and Iran is not to be trusted with nuclear weapons I guess. A pre-emptive strike. Sort of what I promote that womyn take towards the male sex, except that the latter has been pummeling us in their war on females so thoroughly and for so long that such measures would be fundamentally more defensive than pre-emptive. But they're pre-emptive in the sense that womyn would abort, infanticide, or males before the latter individually have the opportunity to become violent, as all of recorded human history shows that many of them inevitably will.

The thing that's on my mind is that there will be people who say that Trump's pre-emptive strike is a sensible thing to do in terms of protection, even though the bombing will cause death, injury, and destruction. But those same people wouldn't have the same attitude towards pre-emptive strikes to prevent male violence even with far less dire results and a far more present threat. Because males are for male fredom, not really for human freedom.

Lots of time wasted today: Someone called about re-doing the plaster that fell from the ceiling, but didn't call back at the agreed-upon time, which I was waiting for; then I went to a laundromat that ended up costing a fortune and my laundry didn't even get dry. So I came home, had dinner, then went to another laundromat. I usually do my laundry here at the apartment complex, but I have to go to the bank for quarters to do that, and I've decided to avoid going to the bank, particularly since the bankers keep asking me for updated id, which I don't have. But I've always hated interacting with the bankers, so I intend to keep using laundromats even after my ID gets updated.

I've been getting caught up in the n+1 sentence mining game as I create Korean flashcards. I spend too much time looking for Korean sentences that contain just one unknown word. It's a way to increase one's vocabulary without getting bogged down in content that is too difficult to understand, but of course the vast majority of Korean sentences contain more than one word that I don't know, so I end up trying to reduce n+2 and n+3 sentences down to n+1 by finding n+1 sentences for the extra unknown words. In many cases, this ends up being a never-ending search and I have to simply give up to avoid spending half the day looking for just a few usable sentences.

I called the post office and got my glycolic acid today. Half of my apartment number was missing from the mailing label, and there was a new mail carrier on my route, so she didn't know where to deliver the package. I had to force myself to be conservative about the amount of acid I added to my homemade serum. If it doesn't sting too much, I'll add some more in a week or two.

I would like to post about more interesting and important things on this blog, but I keep ending up composing while I'm sick/sleepy, and I don't want to stop studying or doing more interesting/productive things when I have more energy. I would like to post about, for example, what I read in Zerzan's book today. What stands out in my sleepy mind, however, was the profound sense of loss I felt as I read about the differences between civilized and non-civilized society.

And something I just noticed as I stand here typing this: female oppression is mentioned clearly and openly in what I've read so far. It's something of a breath of fresh air, although the subject matter itself is quite suffocating. Usually men refuse to admit that this phenomenon is even real, the hostility and disrespect of their refusal itself providing more evidence of their misogyny. This I think is one way to tell whether a guy is a piece of shit or not: if he's hostile towards feminism or believes feminism is no longer necessary, he should be jettisoned. It's something I intend to ask very early on if I ever get the point of considering dating a guy. But it would be so much easier to date a womyn. I really don't want to come into contact with semen.

Current Mood: sleepy

glacier_kitty

It's been a year since I had to say goodbye to Abby, one of the saddest days of my life. She was amazing and I miss her every day. After she died and I went to bed, I felt a presence at my feet..it was definitely Abby, telling me she was still there in a way. I was always amazed at how she loved EVERYONE, how calm she would be going into an unfamiliar place. She loved Greenies and would expect them as soon as I came home from work haha. I loved her "mmmgh!" when she was surprised. Once she licked my tears away when crying. We were definitely soulmates. I hope she's not mad I adopted Curti haha (she definitely did NOT like other cats). I'll have a vanilla bean frappuccino later in memory of her! <3

I went to the dentist earlier..he looked at the extraction site and saw a tiny clot, but not much else, so it seemed to be a partial dry socket. After I got the tooth pulled, I left the gauze on too long, and pulled part of the clot out with the gauze. Yikes, I won't do that again! On Saturday it was so painful I broke out in a sweat, and eating cold things was SUPER painful. At the dentist, he put some kind of medicated strip thing in the extraction site..it was SO painful when he was squishing it in there. D: Thankfully, it has helped A LOT and it'll stay there about a week. I hope it heals quickly now. I'm exhausted after being in pain for so long! No more extractions, please D:

( 2. What is your favorite color, and why? )

larryhammer

For Poetry Monday:

The Llano Estacado, John Poch

How much soil do you plow to soothe a conscience?
If you’re a staked plains, dry-land, long view man:
a sky’s worth. Some even sow the dry playa
mid-summer with sorghum, the cotton plowed under
after early hail. Thus, not every farmer keeps
an old broken homestead sacred as a graveyard.
Today, no Sharpshin on a pivot for an omen,
no stoic farmer on a turn-row changing water.

Among a little wind grit, in a grid on a grid, somewhere
like the crossroads of outer space and Earth, Texas,
a handful of ragged elms withstand a long sway
of heat and wind. These old guards of a home haunt
the field but wither even as ghosts must. Honor them
with a walk among homesick bricks, and prophesy good.

First published in Poetry issue July/August 2009. The Llano Estacado is a large mesa/plateau in west Texas and easternmost New Mexico, extending from Amarillo through Lubbock and down to Odessa. The name is often translated as “staked plain,” with a folk etymologies explaining that its dry grassland is so featureless that Native Americans supposedly put up markers to guide their way (and Coronado famously did find it confusing), but the actual origin is probably “stockaded/palisaded plain,” referring to the escarpments of its eastern and western edges. The sharp-shinned hawk is a common small hawk of the region. The elms, which are not native, would have been grown by a former homesteader by irrigation from wells.

---L.

Subject quote from Dreams, Fleetwood Mac.

cosmolinguist

Hey guess which fuckwit totally spaced on agreeing to a meeting in London this afternoon!

Entirely self-imposed stress. Some combination of agreeing to a thing in March a few weeks ago when that felt very far away, and having last week off.

Starting work this morning after my week off, I settle down to go through my million emails and spot that one of them says"hey Erik I'll be there at 12.54"; "there" is London Bridge and the "today" is unspoken!

Luckily I was, barely, able to get a train there in time (glad it wasn't a morning meeting!), with D kindly getting up early to give me a lift to the station that's most useful: there's trains every 20 minutes to London but now I'm effectively on the 10.15 train when it would have been the 10.55 without his help. Makes a big difference when I would've been getting into Euston about the time I want to be at London Bridge...

I spent the first hour on the train triaging emails (and Teams messages). I'm a little frazzled now so I might give myself the gift of just staring out the window a bit now that we're leaving Rugby (about halfway through my train journey).

disappointed_lesbian

I've been sleeping for perhaps half an hour each morning. I don't sleep at night, so there's no point in going to bed. I'll go to bed if I feel tired, but I don't expect that to happen.

For years now I've believed that my poor sleep was the cause of my ibs. That's because my ibs symptomps improved or worsened according to how much sleep I got. But I'm sleeping less than ever before, yet my ibs symptoms have improved: My constipation isn't as bad, certain foods no longer give me stomach cramps after several days of unusually little sleep, and the stomach cramps I have after bowel movements end quickly, whereas they used to endure for hours.

I have no idea what's happening. Menopause is like turning into superwoman.

And I'm off coffee. I use only black tea to deal with my fatigue/sleepiness. I no longer need coffee to have a bowel movement.

So it's two and a quarter hours after my regular bedtime, I've begun to feel drowsy, so I've taken my extended release melatonin and will go to bed a couple of hours from now. I don't expect to sleep, but I'll try.

Today I just spent a ton of time finding Korean sentences to put on flashcards. I haven't even started studying Mandarin yet even though it's the language I'm supposed to be focusing on.

I'm going to progress in Korean faster than I've progressed in Mandarin. I should be able to start listening to simple podcasts in less than a year. Maybe in a year I will finally go back to Czech, my favorite language. I hate getting back up to speed with things I've been away from for long periods of time. I'm not sure I want to bother with Czech anymore. But I probably will do it anyhow. I hate giving up, and I know that I'll progress more quickly than I was progressing once I get past the refamiliarization stage.

I got an email about my glycolic acid having arrived on Friday, but it's not in the mail. I hope my thirty bucks wasn't wasted. I didn't pay for tracking or insurance or anything. Maybe my mailbox was too full. The mailperson suddenly started delivering advertisement papers recently, and I've sort of refused to take them.

I need to remember to stop trying to compose posts when I'm sleepy. But I guess I'd rather spend my non-sleepy hours studying and other productive things. This blog exercises my writing skills and serves as reminders and medical history...well, I was going to say that keeping this blog isn't very productive besides all that, but all those things make it sound like it is rather productive.

Current Mood: drowsy

glacier_kitty

A book that starts with the letter "Z": The Z Murders by J. Jefferson Farjeon (Feb 2-4). Ugh, one of the worst mysteries I've read. Main character comes across this women, breaks into her house, chases her all across England..? Such a dumb and unrealistic plot

A book that features a platonic friendship between a man and woman: Borrowed Crime by Laurie Cass (Feb 5-9). Yay Minnie and kitty Eddie and their bookmobile! It seems unrealistic how many murders an ordinary librarian comes across (there are 13 books in the series!), but they are definitely fun reads!

A book with "pop" or "sugar" in the title: Blood & Sugar by Laura Shepherd-Robinson (Feb 10-16). A mystery in 1700s in England, after the main character fought in the American Revolutionary War. His leg got injured and he was invalided home (I like how he kept referring to his "infirmity"..I like reading books with disabled characters!). It was interesting reading about the Revolution from England's side! His abolitionist friend got murdered investigating a slave ship, and he continues the investigation, almost getting murdered several times. I love reading history along with mysteries as well, especially when I learn new facts!

A book about a mob (fiction or nonfiction): Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Dinniman (Feb 17-26). I loved this!!! I knew I HAD to read it when I read this on the back cover: "You know what's worse than breaking up with your girlfriend? Being stuck with her prize-winning show cat...Join Coast Guard vet Carl and his ex-girlfriend's cat, Princess Donut, as they try to survive the end of the world." So fun! Donut is so sassy haha. Carl was in his boxers when the dungeon opened, and the game AI refuses to give him pants LOL (the Crawlers get rewards when the kill a boss, level up, etc). I definitely need the next one in the series!

A book about Afrofuturism: Binti: Home by Nnedi Okorafor (Feb 28). I read the first one for another Afrofuture prompt a few years ago. Somehow solving (she calls it "treeing") math problems in her head makes her calmer..I'd rather listen to Gregorian Chant LOL, but whatever helps her, I guess. :P Not the most exciting series, but they are relatively quick reads

( the topics )

Not the best month for reading..I'm still in pain, and will probably have to call the dentist tomorrow. Ugh, so annoying..

I forgot to mention that Feb 26 was my 8-year anniversary of going to Wheathampstead and Cherry's grave..I can't believe it's been that long already! Such an amazing trip <3

28. What is your favorite thing about Friday nights right now? Relaxing at my parents' house, eating popcorn, going to book club, reading in bed..

March 1: What was the last thing you talked about with your mother? Hmm..not sure, maybe something food related?

cosmolinguist

Could not be more perfect after my last post. Maybe I should do this every week...

What made you happy this week?
Greens winning the by-election for my new MP.

2. What made you sad?
Remembering random things from my childhood that involved my grandparents looking after my brother and I, and being the only person who's still around to remember those things.

3. What made you angry?
The U.S. and Israel making the lives of people in Gaza as well as Iran harder.

4. What are you looking forward to in the next week?
In a way, I'm looking forward to D having a medical thing done next Sunday, even if it'll mean some discomfort and disruption for the next couple months. Because it's been going on for years and could've been sorted ages ago. But now it finally will be.

5. What are you not looking forward to?
Going back to work after a week off that felt more like three days off.

cosmolinguist

Thanks to otter for sharing this video the other day: Emotional Neglect: Healing from the Hidden Trauma of What Didn't Happen

I got around to watching it and it hit me so hard I needed to write this huge long thing about it. It's mostly transcript of the parts of the video that I wanted to make a note of, because it's not very accessible to me otherwise. But my thoughts are sprinkled around the block quotes of course.

( Emotional Neglect )

( Emotions Draw Our Attention to What Matters to Us )

( Shame, and Phobia of Inner Experiences )

( Existential Loneliness )

( Unconscious Self-Abandonment )

( Sensitivity to Rejection )

( Using Emotions to Connect Your Inner World to the Outer World )