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I think I have come to the conclusion that large protests are among my least favorite places to be. It's loud. It's crowded. It's emotionally charged. I'm scanning for threats. I feel guilty if I'm not there and inadequate if I am there. I have to talk to people (or at least I should, if I want to make useful connections from it, which I think is one of the major features of large protests). Constantly have to remind myself that the typical reaction to a new person showing interest and getting info about your group/organization is usually "cool! a new person!" and not "where the hell have YOU been?" which is what my brain always wants to tell me lol.

I do still go to the big ones because I think it's important. I sign up for a bunch of email lists and sign whatever petitions are going around and take a bunch of flyers, and I'm out after a planned 90 minutes. I bring my same old sign, "I hate yelling, crowds, and parking at the mall, but I hate ICE more," which usually gets some laughs and agreement.

After I got home I was so overstimulated and over-adrenalined that I had to go out in the yard and pick up a bunch of sticks and prune the apple tree to calm down. Delighted that I'm that sort of person now in my mid-30s. Tomorrow I'm doing another beach cleanup (first of the year!), which ultimately feels more tangibly useful than standing in a crowd, but I think both have their place.

Current Mood: drained

I saw a local production of Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale yesterday, and oh my god it makes me insane, it was my favorite in college but I wasn't sure if that opinion would hold up. IT DID.

I'm not gonna go into all my thoughts about everything because it would be a mess, but kind of the central unsettling thing about the ending, amidst all the magic and bittersweet joy, is Mamillius's absence. Oh my god, Leontes has suffered and grieved all these years for his dead wife and his dead son and his lost infant daughter, and look, his daughter is here! His wife has been miraculously restored! His transgression against the gods has been forgiven, he's suffered enough! EXCEPT!!!

The texts doesn't directly address it but the gaping absence of this dead child is still there. This production had him playing with a ball all throughout the first three acts before his death, and right at the end of the play, after everything's been said and wrapped up, the long lost daughter Perdita (played by the same actor as Mamillius!!!) picks that ball up off a shelf and looks at her father Leontes questioningly, just for a second before the lights go down. Like holy shit, I knew the play but it was a shocking moment. She's gonna have to find out at some point, and what will she think of her father then?

I think some productions choose to lean more heavily into the comic aspect in the latter half and really let it be a miraculous happy ending, but this one just left the unsatisfying nature of the resolution right out in the open! Leontes, you might have been granted a miraculous reprieve but your daughter will still discover the open wound your monstrosity inflicted on your family! Many things are fixed through the grace and goodness of the people around you but not everything! Not everything! Not everything! Not everything!!!!!!

...that would be upsetting to many right-minded people. It was upsetting to me to realize! But I have to say it, here in the echoey chasm of this unknown blog:

I do not care for David Lynch's work.

I have made three unsuccessful attempts to get through Twin Peaks. I had some mild bemused enjoyment for Mulholland Drive. Blue Velvet left me cold. I have great admiration for his thoughts about art, his process, his general philosophy, but there is something about his movies that makes me feel like my fur is being petted the wrong way. I'm not sure what exactly-- my best guess is there's a kind of sweetness and innocence to his protagonists (as far as I've seen) that just doesn't do it for me. The music choices do not help.

I think I am just a David Cronenberg girly at heart. I'm reading his novel Consumed right now. 15 pages in and he is already eroticizing surgery and I feel at home.

I think the combination of general winter malaise and broad economic uncertainty has made me feel very squirrel-like when it comes to money and resources right now. I did a big spreadsheet laying out monthly expenses and combed through looking for any subscriptions to cancel, etc. Turns out there was only one I needed to get rid of (but I'm keeping my eye out for any annual ones that will pop up in next few months), and I'm still happy with the 5 or 6 little monthly donations I'm doing to various places. Still saving pretty aggressively, between the two retirement accounts and the emergency fund.

One of the things I was looking forward to with having a house with a basement was stocking up on some stuff. Not like full disaster prepper mode, but enough that I can go downstairs to the "store" for more paper towels or whatever rather than having to go out for it. Eventually I want to get some more shelves and a chest freezer down there. And in service of that, I'm finally a Costco member as of yesterday lol. I had heard people saying "oh I hate shopping in general but I love Costco" and I was pressing a big X to doubt on that. And while it was more stressful than a regular grocery run due to the size and scale of it all, I will admit that it made me think about personal resource management in a new way and that was kind of fun and interesting, especially since I'm trying to eat a little healthier. Like "oh this looks like good granola-- can I have it for breakfast every day for the next two weeks with a dollop from this massive container of nondairy yogurt?" My desire to not have to make decisions about what I eat has always conflicted with getting tired of eating the same thing over and over, so we'll see how this goes. Also I got eight bottles of ginger lemon kombucha for like 12 bucks and that was pretty great. I'm gonna survive this long winter for sure.

I'm thinking of asking for a dvd/blu-ray player for Christmas to get myself back on the physical media train. I have a couple binders of dvds that have just been sitting in the cabinet since the old Xbox (our last dvd-playing device) shat the bed some years back. Streaming services have been winnowed down to Netflix and HBO for the major ones, plus Dropout and Nebula (which has been mildly underwhelming). I'd like to get a better pirating setup worked out so I can actually watch shit on the big tv rather than just my laptop, but that's going to be more of an undertaking that I'm going to have to rope spouse into. I'm sure it's not actually that difficult, but I'm a failed millennial who never really learned to pirate stuff when my brain was nice n stretchy, and it's intimidating to start now.

I think the dvd piece of it will be stuff that I know I'll go back to again and again, and would be upset to lose access to. Got a little list going and I figure I'll pick them up bit by bit.

Doing these questions from thefridayfive (and extra inspired by mxroboto!)

1. Do you consider yourself to be a good housekeeper? Why or why not? Genuinely no idea. I think I am probably good enough, considering I work full time. Some of the chores I do every week should probably get done every few days, and some of the stuff I do once a month should probably get done every week. I'm sure there are people who would look at me and think "damn bitch you live like this?" But I also feel that way looking at other people sometimes, so I'm probably somewhere in the middle. Cleaning was a very fraught, shame-based thing in my house growing up, and I remember I had a ton of anxiety moving into my current house, the first one I own, like I wasn't up to the task of caring for the house the way she deserves. But framing it as an act of love for the house has been helpful, and I don't feel so inadequate anymore.

2. Are there any household chores that you enjoy doing? If so, what and why? I genuinely don't mind doing most chores once I actually get up and start doing them, but I probably get the most satisfaction out of cleaning the kitchen counters. I usually do my big kitchen-reset/semi-deep-clean on Saturdays, because making my coffee in a clean kitchen on Sunday morning feels luxurious.

3. Which household chore frustrates/angers you the most? For the longest time it was vacuuming, as I was genuinely hated and cursed by all vacuum cleaners. Every time I tried to vacuum, there was some clog or other malfunction. This has been witnessed and attested to by multiple outside parties, to the point that I just announced that I was not going to be doing any of the vacuuming anymore, and my spouse, having seen the depth of my struggle, agreed to take it on. However, last Christmas we bought a fancy and way-too-expensive German canister vacuum in lieu of gifts for each other, and while it is still not my favorite chore, I can complete it without any undue tribulations.

4. When doing household chores, what do you do to make them seem less of a "chore"? I just listen to music or a podcast, or watch junk tv while I'm folding laundry.

5. Which chore do you find yourself doing most often, and why? Gotta be dishes. Spouse does the bulk of the meal planning, shopping, and cooking, and in return the dishes are my chore.

Current Mood: relaxed

My buddy mxroboto had the wonderful idea to look up and complete an old-internet style questionnaire, so I'm just gonna go ahead and ride their coattails.

What song makes you feel better? Depends what flavor of bad I'm feeling. "Storm" by godspeed is a good bet.

What is your go to comfort show? I have a few that I cycle through. Hunter x Hunter is definitely one of them, and King of the Hill is probably my favorite to fall asleep to.

Reading or writing? Why? Tough, but it's gotta be reading I think.

Whats your favorite feeling? Finally untangling a plot knot and then writing a big chunk I'd been stuck on.

How do you like to take care of yourself? Gotta make sure there's enrichment in the enclosure. Spending time outside, doing creative stuff, moving the rickety old body around, eating reasonably.

What’s your favorite candle scent? I'm very picky about scents, the only one I like currently is called Grandpa's Cardigan, and it's described as "Smoky birch notes are layered with spicy scents of black pepper and cardamom. Hints of mandarin and jasmine add a soft finish to the smoke and spice." I light it when I want to turn a shower into an occasion.

Who do you feel most like yourself around? Husband for sure. I can say whatever dumb thing I want around him with no fear of judgment.

What's a fabric/texture that’s nostalgic for you? Leather, specifically the thick, well broken-in leather used for saddles and bridles. The feel and texture and smell brings me back to many, many hours spent cleaning tack when I was younger.

Best childhood moment? I don't know about single moment, but I have very fond memories of spending all day at the barn on Saturdays as a kid, age 10-13ish. I didn't even ride sometimes, but my buddies and I would help the lesson students get their ponies ready, and set jumps in the arena, and rearrange the big bags of shavings to make forts, and do whatever little tasks needed doing. It was nice to just be set loose for the day, more or less.

When was the last time you laughed so hard you cried? (or just felt really good afterwards) I think it was Conner O'Malley's mockumentary "Rap World." The section where they're talking aimlessly about swimming again, starting with an indoor pool and then "working our way up to darker and darker waters."

Do you have a comfort item? Tell us about it! I guess my engagement ring and wedding ring. Sometimes I fiddle with them with my thumb when I'm nervous.

What calms you down? Watching anime and petting the doggy.

Bath or shower to relax? Shower. Baths are always disappointing to me somehow.

Whats something upcoming that you’re excited for? We're doing a lil staycation at the end of September, and I'm currently trying to narrow down all the towns I'd like to day-trip to and explore. There are so many nice little spots within a couple hours' drive.

Comfort food? Ugh. Local vegan restaurant makes these "everything fries" with shiitake bacon, caramelized onions, jalapenos, cashew cheese sauce, and a bunch of other stuff. It's expensive for what it is and also not really a legit meal on its own, but sometimes after a long week that's all I really want.

What’s something you want to create soon? My original story about the monk tormented by alien angels is backburnered at the moment but I will get to it someday!

How do you feel best loved? When I'm encouraged to do something I want to do, even if it's silly or unnecessary.

What age in life do you think you’ll feel most yourself at? So far a little bit more each year, and I'm hoping that continues.

Have you ever written or received a love letter? Yes, both.

Tell us about a memory you hold close to your heart. Most of the times I've gotten together with my college buddies since we graduated. It's hard because everyone kind of scattered across the country (and the world, especially for the year or two after graduation), so the times when we're back together again are very valuable. I love to see the strength of those relationships, where we can talk on the phone a handful of times a year, and maybe see each other in some combination every year or two, and still click right back into place with each other.

Tea, Coffee, or hot cocoa? Coffee.

Name of your favorite playlist? "Spider funeral". It's my choral/classical playlist from the year when I could. not. stop. killing off members of the Phantom Troupe in my writing.

Have you ever received flowers? Husband brings home flowers from the farmy market every so often. When I was in my teens/20s I used to be all "grrr I don't want flowers, they just die!" But now I'm like, fuck it, it's nice to have flowers in the house.

Who is your best friend? I think I have a number of best friends in different ways and I love them all.

If your soul was a color, what would it be? Dark green

If you could live anywhere with anyone you want, where would it be and who would you bring? I have this idea that I'd want to live in a little Norwegian fishing village in a colorful little hut, but realistically I think I'd go stir-crazy and also starve, because I don't eat fish. So I think I'm actually pretty good where I am, I'd just reel all my friends in a bit closer.

Do you like to garden? Have you ever grown something? I do like to garden, but I don't know a lot and I'm also a pretty hands-off gardener after the frenzy of spring passes. But I'm working on my garden, bit by bit, year by year.

What are you proudest of? Coming out of the family I came from relatively healthy and intact.

Are you a kind person? I think so, largely. I know where my mean streak is, at the very least, and I try not to feed it.

What do your hobbies look like? I like to find hobbies that I don't have to be "good at." Writing is an exception, I have very high standards for my own writing, but my other hobbies are just shit I like doing no matter how it turns out.

I took a day off work to Get Shit Done, and did I ever, though a lot of it was the kind of deep cleaning that isn't very impressive to look at (dishes still in sink, floor hasn't been swept and mopped yet, etc). But! I did three loads of laundry, ironed and put up a new curtain (and ironed the rest of my work shirts), went out and bought two new pairs of work pants for fall, returned two sweaters that didn't work out, refilled the propane tank for the grill, vacuumed all three bedrooms, dusted everythinggggg, cleaned the windows from the inside at least, cleaned both bathrooms minus the floors which I'll get to later... I WILL do the kitchen by the end of the day. And tomorrow I'll focus more on clearing off surfaces and putting stuff away, vacuum the stairs, downstairs floors, washing the couch blankets since Ellie was doing some hardcore bone-chewing on them.

I knew my plans for the day were over-ambitious, so I'm not too disappointed that I didn't get to the Y. I think I've earned a little baby weed gummy.

Current Mood: accomplished
Current Music: In a Big Country, by Big Country

I just became aware of and watched Conner O'Malley's youtube mockumentary about the making of a rap album. Everyone in the comments is on the same fucking page:

"This perfectly captures the dread of hanging out with dangerously stupid scumbags in the 2000s"

"This like many other of Connor’s works feels mathematically engineered to elicit dread from anyone raised in the suburban Midwest from 2001-2012"

"The thing that's truly remarkable about this to me, is that it 100% genuinely feels like it was made in 2009."

"The way the stink of defeat hangs over these guys is absolutely brutal. You just know from the very first frame they're not going to make an album. They're not going to make a goddamn thing."

"Citizen Kane for guys who got caught by their stepdad hitting the gravity bong in the shed"

"This makes me not miss getting stoned with friends from high school I thought I did miss but now remember I don’t"

"Nostalgia antidote."

There's just this collective moan of recognition at what it was like to be a fucking loser in 2009. Luckily I only skirted this kind of existence for a short bit, but I knew people like the people in this movie, and oh my god. It reminds me of the writing advice that a true transcription of spoken dialogue would be unreadable, that you have to find ways to make it into a heightened version of natural dialogue that actually *feels* more realistic than a transcription of an actual conversation. It's horrifying, and the laughs it pulled from me felt like electric shocks.

That and Joe Pera Talks With You are probably my top two tv/movie finds this year.

I saw Godspeed live for the fourth time this weekend (#5 will be this fall) and it was a soul-scrubbing experience as always. I also brought my partner for the first time, who has just recently come around on them. It was fun to hear his impressions because most of his concert experiences have been EDM, where it's a very light, fun, party atmosphere. Godspeed shows are not that. A Godspeed show is like standing outside in a hurricane. The sound is so huge that it feels like it could hold you upright. The band doesn't address the audience. They barely even look at the audience. And while Boston concertgoers are notoriously stoic, I've never seen a crowd fall into a trance quite the way theirs do.

It's a shame, because Blaise Bailey Finnegan III is just an incandescently beautiful song, but the person in the field recording is so obnoxious to me that I only listen to it pretty rarely. But it kicked like a mule live. I feel really lucky that I got to hear it, because they don't play it super often.

And I actually ran into a high school friend there, who I hadn't seen or talked to for 15 years. He was one of those people who was so incredibly smart that that's mostly what people noticed about him, and it really overshadowed how fucking cool he was on top of that. And he's thriving! He's a lefty economics professor at a major university! He and another long-lost friend and I are going to see if we can fully catch up next time we're all in town. Sometimes I'm just so struck with pride at how many of the people I've cared about are out there doing incredible things. And I can't even really regret that I was wearing my "I only pretend to listen to Hildegard von Bingen to get pussy" t-shirt when he spotted me in the crowd, because I really have not changed that much since high school. Except, I hope, I'm less of a shithead now.

I never really thought of myself as a beach person, because it was always unhappy vacations with my family, expensive parking, hot, brutal sun, crowds, sand sticking to my wet skin, etc. Not my scene at all. When we moved to Rhode Island, I'd take like, one overcast day in October and go down to one of the big beaches and sit and watch the waves for a few hours, and that was nice.

But going to check on this osprey on this little spit of tucked away shoreline (in the middle of an HOA community that *aggressively* doesn't want people to know that there's public access) has kind of changed my relationship to it. It's close, I can stop by for 15 minutes in between other errands. It's quiet. I'm getting to know the cast of characters: the two osprey, the flock of brants that hung out there in spring before continuing their migration, the eastern cottontails, the catbird pair in the woods. Sometimes Ellie comes with me and wades in the shallows. It feels more like a real environment, and less of a commercial destination.

We finally bought a ladder after *checks watch* 4+ years of home ownership, so now I can finally hang the bat house at an appropriate height, and cut down some of the overhanging vines and branches that are constantly caking our cars in plant matter. Big day!

And I also ripped out the poison ivy that was growing on the retaining wall between neighbor's yard and our driveway... wore thick dishwashing gloves and long sleeves, then everything went straight into the laundry and a cool shower for me, so fingers crossed I didn't get got.

I was hoping to arrange a little bee/insect watering station in a glass pie pan today, thinking I'd get some river rocks and colored glass beads to make it accessible and appealing. But the aquarium rocks/marbles I was looking at were like, $7 for a tiny little bag. Fuck that, I'll find some rocks.

My New Jersey Tea and Red Columbine seedlings should be arriving this week, which is exciting, I'll stick those in the ground as soon as they get here. Milkweed is thriving as always, and the smooth hydrangea is settling right in, but I am not feeling optimistic about the stuff I planted from seed. Who knows, maybe it'll pop up next year long after I've given up hope entirely.

Two of my best friends from college visited this weekend, and both of them are waaay better-read than I am and also horrible enablers, so I ended up with a fresh TBR stack.

Wolf Hall, by Hilary Mantel Way late to the party on this one, but I'm really enjoying it so far. Mantel is so good at sketching out characters with strong, deft, economical lines, the prose is just a delight. I was warned that the beginning was a little slow but even then I felt like it moved right along.

Kairos, by Jenny Erpenbeck This was a gift from one of my friends, and not one I would have picked off a shelf, but I can see why she chose it for me: story of a chaotic affair taking place in East Berlin around the time of collapse of the DDR. Should be cool!

Hellions, by Julia Elliott Short story collection, also a gift from friend, apparently mixing Southern Gothic, horror, fairy tale elements, and a million other ingredients. I was impressed with this interview with the author, starting with "Reading The Lottery by Shirley Jackson and The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka in high school stirred an early awareness that the distinction between “literary” and “genre” fiction was bogus and that 'literary realism' was never going to be my thing."

Swamplandia! by Karen Russell This author was (probably still is?) a professor at my college and this was her debut novel that came out while I was there. I never read it but always meant to. Story of a young teenage girl who grew up on her family's roadside alligator farm attraction, who goes on a quasi-mystical swamp journey of initiation in the midst of a family crisis? Or that's my vague understanding, anyway. Found it in a used bookstore and picked it up.

Stolen Focus, by Johann Hari Another rec from a friend which finally arrived at my local bookstore this week. If I'm gonna continue writing, gardening, osprey watching, reading, and still have room for other hobbies in the future I gotta be able to focus!

And finally, two little zines about mushrooms and woodlouse, which will both be sent off to new homes soon!

Current Mood: calm

I feel like the past year or two has just been an explosion of new interests. Which is great! The bad part is that I hate that stage where I'm juuuust becoming aware of everything I don't know. With birds I'm starting to get a handle on the most common ones. I know my local crew of brants, and the herons and egrets. I know a catbird because they're my favorites, and the usual suspects at my urban birdfeeder. Don't ask me about gulls or warblers. I think I saw a fish crow once but it was based purely on vibes. At the very least, I can usually look up a bird I don't know.

Plants are a whole other story. Every time I'm out walking the dog my internal monologue is a chain of "what the fuck is that? What the fuck is THAT? That can't be native." And sometimes I stop to take a picture to upload on inaturalist later, but a lot of the time I have to just sit with the mystery. I'm lurking on the native plant gardening subreddit and kind of working backwards from the frequently discussed friends and foes, so now I can tell buckthorn from virginia creeper. I have more familiarity with the things I've (tried to) plant myself, kinda. I'm aware that this initial loss of "plant blindness" is pretty par for the course and I have to be patient, but man.

Busy morning! Did the AIDS Walk with my coworkers this morning (which was nice but quite shrimpy, basically a one mile walk around the perimeter of a park), then checked on one of my osprey nests, then stopped in at the library and put volume 2 of Berserk on hold, got some lunch stuff from the grocery store..... took a nap. Mowed the lawn, which I don't like doing this early, but if I let it get too thick and long my dinky little electric mower can't handle it. I was thinking of taking my seeds out of the freezer and planting them, but I think I'm gonna give them another week.

I'm thinking about taking a break from correspondence until I can finish this fic chapter, which is coming up on 3 months since the last update, yikes. If I really buckle down I could probably get it done in a week, I hope.

Current Mood: accomplished
Current Music: "Ru Ana Te Whenua" by Alien Weaponry

I've checked on my osprey nests twice now and so far only one of them seems to be occupied. But I'm still very happy with my choices, it's much better to visit two pretty coastal spots, versus a parking lot off the highway. The southern nest has an active pair (and I think I saw a third adult osprey in the area too, which is supposedly rare!), and as a bonus there's always a big flock of brants out on the water.

The northern nest has been empty so far, but I get to watch the redwing blackbirds doing their thing in the surrounding marsh, and it's always so nice to smell the salty mud and look for crabs. There are two trailcams set up in the area, I'd really love to know who put them there and what they're watching for.

Current Mood: tired
Current Music: "Twin Flames," Lustmord

I've started and deleted probably five posts here, and I'm realizing how much fourteen years on tumblr trained me to avoid personal disclosure. I think on tumblr I got very good at communicating the general flavor of who I am through the collage of curated reblogs and additional tags, but no exact thoughts or feelings that someone could piss on the poor about. And now it's very hard to actually compose and post sentences and words without thinking either "well this could be misinterpreted in xyz ways" or "who cares?"

Anyway! I like writing fucked up fanfiction about twisty, complex characters. I'm currently reading The Once and Future King by T.H. White, the Berserk manga, and rereading one of my favorite epic longfics from the golden age of Kylux. I like looking at birds (and occasionally identifying them). I like native plant gardening, a new interest this year. I'm old enough to have been on livejournal but never was, so there might be a bit of a learning curve here.

Current Mood: calm
Current Music: "The Devil's Walk" album by Apparat