New day in the farm

 fic.

Pigs, men were all pigs.

Urmila was tired. She got up four in the morning, worked in the farm till 9, took the produce to the market, with the money bought supplies and carefully managed the expenditure for the house, and back to work at farm in the evenings. Through her hard work, they were at three thousand quails, two thousand chicken, two dozen cows and some land for seasonal vegetables. Now she was in talk with another local farm to start three houses for mushroom. Mushroom was easy to grow, didn't need too much land and the market was hot for the vegetable. Everyone wanted to try a new kind of mushroom.

Her husband, he was the problem. He wanted to take all the credit for it, that drunkard fat man. HE talked of the farm like he was the manager, to someone who didn't know she was a mere worker for him, he was the properieter owner and hardworker in there. Where in reality he barely contributed to the chores, he spent his day drinking and playing cards with his buddies, squandering away whatever money he'd find in the house. He had come so low as to ask his children for money, money that she gave them as pocket money to spend on lunch and for their own expenses. She had threatened to push him into the Bungmati if he did it again, there were no more complaints about that. But now she had to be more careful with putting the money away from him, he'd take anything he found.

She was  stressed out. THe project was going to be a big one, it could triple their income in three years. That would mean the kids could go to better schools, she could start saving money for a nice house instead of living in the middle of a temporary structure in their farm, they could travel like their more well-off relatives. And they could expand their land. The lease for the nearby farms had run out, they lay fallow, the owners had offered her at a low rate, she didn't have enough money. More chicken, more pigs, she'd get a couple of dozen goats too. And for Dashain she'd buy maybe a few hundred of those animals, sell them marked up during the festivals, that'd be enough money to pay for a few years of the extra lease. With the extra income coming, she'd hire more workers, expand the processing facility and grow organic. The big department store needed a reliable supplier for vegetables, she was not big enough to make it into their order books, but a guaranteed order from someone like that would mean she could take loan from the bank to go even bigger. Her own meat processing plant! She would grow her own grass plants, hatch her own eggs, breed her own pigs and goats. In ten years she could grow to become one of the bigger farmers around, if things went according to the plan. Her husband was the problem.

He didn't want her to. She was talking to too many people, not spending enough time, he felt like a loser, his friends were making fun of him that his wife was out ruling the world and he was a nobody, he said. Lets stay like this, you should spend more time with me, in the hosue do the chores, he said. She shouted at him. I already do the chores you good for nothing lazy piece of shit, what have you helped in the hosue, I cook every morning and evening, send the children to school, clean everything and manage the finances. Where do you think all that fat in your stomach comes from. From tomorrow you can't be lazy like this anymore. If you want me to do anything then you have to help me, otherwise you have no say. Do I need to come to your friends and scold them too, she threatened him. He got quiet.

The next morning he showed up at the farm at seven in the morning.

An eventful night

I'm doing writing 'workshops' with friends, started today. For our first day, we did a writing exercise where each of us wrote a sentence or two, and let the other continue, and so on. It was SK and my first writing experiment. Here's the story. I like it. So many threads to explore! SK says she knows some elements of the story have happened to people she knows, so this is based on real-life events. Co-authorship credit to SK.

Write a scene or story that includes a character either taking a dare, or revealing a secret about themselves. Use the simplest sentences and structures you can.

Source

Ram was playing truth and dare with his friends. Ram chose truth when it was his turn. Ram, who do you like the most in this group, asked Sita. Ram looked to his left and slowly pointed to Lakshman. The group hollered, and Lakshman blushed. Sita then said, “no, I meant a girl. Who is your favorite girl?” Wow Sita are you being homophobic, are you saying Ram can’t like a man, Shyam said. Sita looked at Shyam mortified and said, it wasn’t about homophobia, rather the fact that Ram choosing brother was not valid. “Wait, Laxman is your bro? I thought you guys were fuckin’, dawg,” Harry said. “Naw bro, he’s my brother from another mother,” Ram said, now as horrified as Sita. “I do not condone incest”, he added. Awkward silence. Urmila cleared her throat and said, “okay guys let's move on, haha there’s one question and he answered already move on”.

“Thanks,” Ram said, grateful that Urmila was helping the group move forward from the uncomfortable situation. They spun the bottle again, and what happened next will shock you! The bottle pointed at Urmila, who picked dare. There was silence in the group. Urmila was the person who wouldn’t back down from any task, no matter what so you couldn’t make her lose and get her to chug her drink, which was the punishment for failing a dare. Sita knew that this was an opportune moment. She was going to make her do something scandalous.

“Make her go lesb,” said Gita, giggling. The guys hollered and the girls had their mouth open in shock. Sita then smirked. “Kiss me”, she said, looking at Urmila. “Wait wait, we have to make a rule about how long it’ll last, it can’t just be a light peck on the chin,” Hari said. Urmila gasped in horror. “No way!” she screamed. But before she knew it, Sita was already getting closer to her. Urmila saw Sita’s large black eyes getting close to her, her hair that smelled like flowers, like the flowers on the google docs. She lost her breath, she couldn’t think straight (pun totally intended). She took one long breath. And to everyone’s surprise, got up, just as Sita was abou t to kiss her and headed straight (no pun intended) to Ram. Before Ram had a moment to think about it, she kissed him for 42 seconds. Ram, is that your phone in your pocket or you really happy to play this game, she asked him loudly at the end of those 42 seconds, winking at him. Sita was seething with rage at this point. “He’s mine!” she screamed.

What Urmila didn't know was Sita was a secret chemist with a serial-killer level of knowledge of toxins and poisons. Hari and Gita gasped and held their breaths, expecting the worst. Lakshman looked slightly jealous and uncomfortable as he was hoping to marry Urmila. “There’s love for everyone babe,” Urmila said, as she pushed Sita slightly and hardcore made out with her. Sita had to come back gasping for air, because their kiss was so intense and passionate. “Happy?” Urmila said. Lakshman was even more horrified at this, and even more jealous. He dashed straight to Urmila, and kissed her as well. “What the fuck you creep,” Urmila said, andpunched him on the nose. “Ow, ow ow,” Laxman said cupping his groin as unknown to everyone else she had also kicked him hard at his junk. “What the fuck bro, I was gonna ask your dad for your hang in marriage, and now you punch me?” “Yes, because I don’t like you. I will either marry Ram, or spend the rest of my life with my sister, and by sister I  mean sister from another mother,  Sita,” Urmila retorted. Ram ran away as he could not handle the stress. Gita and Hari had already slowly walked away and left a few minutes prior as they predicted how ugly it was going to get. Sita got turned on by how much passion Urmila had for her, and they were like totally making out and kissing all night long in the dorm living room. Finally, in the end, Lakshman, Sita and Urmila ended up having a threesome. Urmila was open to this arrangement. Unfortunately for him, they weren’t too eager to include him in their activities, and he ended up as an audience in their passionate physical love affair, sadly trying to masturbate himself in the corner of the room but failing to do so. Urmila and Sita suddenly realized Lakshman was in the room as well, and noticed him trying to jerk off. “LOL What the ef?” Sita said and laughed. Then she turned back to Urmila and continued making out.

Anyway, the night ended okay for most of the people, except for poor Ram who was so mortified after this experience that he had to go into the forest for 14 years. Today we celebrate Diwali in honor of Ram returning after 14 years with a regained confidence in humanity. Upon his return, he did notice that Urmila and Sita were still together, while Lakshman was bald and had a beer belly.

Most people lived happily ever after, except for the creeps.

The end.

 

FAQ From Your New Alien Overlords

Dear human subjects, we have been innundated with the same questions over and over again in recent days. Therefore this Comprehensive (TM) FAQ will answer all of your biggest questions and concerns. Don't bother us in the early hours of the morning wondering if you'll be eaten for dinner or have anal probes you upon you, you sick fucks. Control your kinks.

Q: Are we fucked?
A: Indeed.

Q: Is this a joke?
A: What's a joke? Kidding! See, that was a joke! Our communication specialists are so competent we have managed to translate humor across the universe. Anyway, no this is not a joke. This is Serious (TM).

Q: Was it the Chicken?
A: Yes. You should have treated them better. By the looks of it many of you already knew that bad things would be happening to you, it was just a matter of time. This is not a surprise at all and you know it. Chin up, bub.

Q: How were you able to cross vast intergalactic distances, and still be able to reverse-engineer our culture and technology so quick?
A: That's two questions. First, because we're so goddamn smart okay have you even looked at our heads, every other being says wow you're so heady, so smart you must be the smartest species in the universe but we say nothing because we're humble. We've also been told we're the humblest creatures in all eternity. Not that we ever brag about it. Because our technology has progressed for tens of thousands of human years, we have been able to use certain fundamental properties of the universe that the humans have not yet encountered and accelerated space travel using that arcane knowledge.

As for the second question, we read the instruction manuals. End to end, in great detail. It's not hard, if you just pay attention.

Q: What will you do to us?
A: Eat you whole. Haha kidding. We're not barbarians. We'll stew you with our authentic spices and herbs from back home. So. Sleep well! Toodles.

The other revolution

I've been randomly putting out these flash fiction pieces that can be compiled into a couple-thousand narrative at this point. There was a piece I liked specially, a couple making a run out of their house and into the Indian border after getting some bad news, can't seem to find that anymore. Imagine Harry Potter's parents but if they got tipped off, etc.

Anyway, this seems to be where that appears to be heading, so I'm dumping it out here. If it makes into something worth putting more energy into, I'll organize it better.

Meanwhile, here's the other pieces. None of them are the one I'm looking for. If anyone knows what I'm talking about 

Escape from Kathmandu
Man of Principle
Comrade PM

When Raul chandra ghosh saw the armed vehicles rolling towards him, it was already to late. The activist realized  in the last conscious moments he should have listened to the classified information he had been provided with the evening before and made his way to the border. Tell them it's going to be fine, were his last words that fateful evening.

Three months later he was a different man, having recovered a serious concussion and a mild heart-attack caused by discovering the wrong end of 45 barrels of guns pointed at him. The new government didn't intend to destroy or kill all its enemies, the spokesperson for the new regime explained to him once he was out of the hospital. They weren't evil like everyone was making them out to be, they just needed support of trusted honest hardworking folks like him, they'd put him in the power anyway they just needed to do some housecleaning and remove those forces that had not allowed the country to go anywhere over all these years.

What caused one of the pioneers of the new political movement to sell out so quick, there were many discussions on. A father of 2 three-year-olds, he couldn't compromise the safety of his wife and children, a school of thought went. Others said he was a coward from the start, even without his family he would have stood no chance against the enemy's techniques. Some even questioned his motivations from the start, they suggested he was a mole for the new regime anyway, once they came in full control of the facilities of the state they placed him in position he had been placed from the start.

Regardless of the reasons, the former fighter and organizer was the very face of the system he fought so hard against. They wanted to put him in the anti-disinformation division, he was suave enough to realize the department would soon be known as the propaganda arm of the military government, he didn't want to come in the first line of fire if things went south. Instead he chose a much safer, even proactive department: social innovation.

The purpose of the social innovation department was, according to their objectives, to realign and restructure social infrastructures in the nation to remove friction that stopped the country from reaching greatness, and global acclaim. Removal of superstitious beliefs, gender limitations, caste divisions, and feudalistic practices, where their primary goals. Their actually motivation -- besides what the unbelievably naive inside thought -- was to make sure there wasn't enough social cohesion and interaction between the various groups and organizations inside for them to be able to foment and organize any rebellion. That meant constantly coming up with new training programs and marches and workshops and campaigns and changing the people around, so nobody had the time energy or the social capital to coalesce a group of similarly-minded people. Anti-disinformation training, three weeks. Identifying bias in various places in the society, two months. Transition management, three months. Power dynamics management between the oppressed and the oppressors, ten weeks. So on and on and on. They co-opted every piece of liberal organizing they could find from the west -- referred to as propaganda by the core government members -- and used it to create a facade of social activism and interest. The presentation itself was just to keep people busy and tired enough to not be able to think of anything solid. The presenters spent a great time and energy to keep the participants, who numbered in the high hundreds in large halls always, engaged throughout, while not forming strong bonds with each other. Eventually they formed a sub-department that hired tens of thousands, designed solely to come up with ways to keep the attendees -- the higher-ups referred to them as prisoners, rather pleased -- occupied and engaged. Anything to stop them from thinking for themselves.

The goals were multi-pronged: use the appearance of progressive social goals to get a buy-in from the liberal european countries, while using the centralized force and authoritarian structure to convince the Americans and the Chinese that this was a suitable plalce for their political structures to thrive. It worked, somehow, against all expectations. Foreign aid only increased, in kind and through technical means. The human-rights organizations complained, the international media nagged, diaspora communities held rallies. They all fizzled eventually, everyone went to the next big political hotspot soon enough.

A nation of thirty million, ruled by a group of people that were not only corrupt and politically inept but also had limited political training. It was bound for a counter-rebellion, a pullback by the old guard, some sort of reaction from all those whose power and wealth had been taken away. The hilly terrain was particularly favorable for guerilla warfare, the mountains and forests could hide and support hundreds in every mountainside. The junta, inexperienced as they were, had also studied in great detail the history of similar coups and their evolution through the years. Urbanization programs were started so no villagers could be human shield for undesired provocateurs. In the name of nature conservation, all the hillocks and mountainsides that were evaluated by military strategists to be difficult to take over were nationalized and consolidated. The army's control of national parks was made absolute, entry and exit was strictly monitored,anyone found inside a preservation without proper documentation could face serious repercussions in the civilian courts. The poor, illiterate, uneducated, unfortunate suffered the most, many shot on sight. The cost of progress is that you have collateral damage while learning your way to greatness, proclaimed the government media.

Soon enough the government ran out social training programs, there's only so many boring things you can repeat over and over again in front of people before they start getting bored and zoning out. That was when the skills-development camps were deployed. Labor camps were too unappetizing in the modern day and age. The chinese saw them for what they were right away and provided significant resources to get the projects started.

There was a glitch in the plan the revolutionaries never thought of.

For a revolution ito succeed you need a critical mass of believers, even if they're never going to take up arms or involve themselves in any sort of conflict you need people to believe, that you're doing them good, that your political school of thought is better than the alternatives, that any criticism of the system or a subsystem thereof is a personal attack on you oand everything you stand for. This particular overthrow of power had never made it to the critical level instead relying on reach and force.

The labor camps weren't that. They turned out to be legitimate skills-training programs backed by a large bureaucracy that was fighting for its survival against real or imagined enemies and spent a great amount of resources and manpower in coming up with programs that were engaging and interesting. Because that's how counterrevolutions can be avoided, the thought went, when your enemy is such a big and important part of you they won't even comprehend any sort of social dismantlement or readjustment of basic principles. Farmers turned into creative and curious farmers, mechanics, medical helpers, childcare workers, repairmen in a matter of months. Unemployed hordes of educated but unskilled graduates got the missing element of their education completed, they were vigorous in espousing the benefits of their new practice. Because the programs were designed to be intense and stressful, everyone practiced all the time, creative new products, coming up with new innovation, thinking

Minor project update: farming and brewing

I've written about this before, but i planted four packets. They were going very slow, so for two of them I put them above the heating mat I got a few days ago. And now they're rotting instead of growing. I've isolated them and put them away from the heat, and going to see how they'll progress for the next few days. What a bummer. I should have used water as thermal mass to control temperature anyway, it was foolish to think only keeping it over the mat would fix everything. At least the other bags, the remaining two are doing alright.

Kombucha is still brewing, it's getting more sour but I like it I've been drinking regularly these days the most I've drunk, ever. I may not have other shit in place right now, but oh boy my probiotics are poppin'.

Cabin fever

 I've written about this before, but it's getting to the part of the lockdowns, pandemic where the extended friend group is voluntarily isolating. Have't met friends in a month, a big hangout hasn't been had since march. Only people I've met have been roommate PK's friends...It's getting a little difficult to be all cooped up and be doing nothing. Motivation is becoming a problem. The walls of my room and the apartment are becoming these giant prison walls even though I go out for an hour or two every morning and or evening. One needs nature, one needs friends, and social connection. Without those, times get rough. Gotta organize something good soon. Oh right, going to NYC hopefully next weekend, Philly a few weekends after that, and to VA within the next month. Dashain is coming soon. Strange to say but I've never been as excited about Dashain. It was too much social stimulation under normal times but now it's meeting folks after what feels like an eternity. Good things, now is the time to happen.

Get up now

 I cleaned the room
Cleared out the clothes
No dishes in sight
Windows open
It's so airy and bright.

Took a long nap
Lit a candle
It smells so good
Time for me
to get a handle
on my mood.

Time to get up
And sit straight
Get everything done
That I've been putting
for late.

The fight is constant
Against time
I ain't giving up
Even if it means
bad bad rhyme.

Ten reasons to bail out of the Country ASAP.

1.  The home minister thinks the insane rate of increase in rapes is nothing to be worried about. Speaking of which, he probably has an intimate knowledge about the situation, and it's fucked up he's in the position he's in.
   
   
   
2. The pests have no understanding of the fact that people are dying left and right and will see a apocalypse scenario if this trajectory continues but they just wanna earn earn earn, every which way possible.
   
   
   
3. It's a shit place to be a woman, generally, or be someone who cares about welfare of women.
   
   
   
4. Democracy is just an inconvenient process between them and getting into power, which they have figured out a way around. Now you can lose all the votes in the world, and STILL be sent up into the government, and rule around. Because it's not the public choice they ever cared for, but for validation of the existing rotten piece of breaking shit.
   
   
   
5. Speaking of which, the fools will keep on voting for the same people to power until one day when even that privilege will be taken away from them.
   
   
   
6. The economy actually doesn't produce anything or do productive investments. It lives on the shoulders and bones of poor emigrants who sell their souls to send back the money. The consumption rates of the place are comical for what is a total failed state.
   
   
   
7. Anyone over 60 in your household is in grave danger of meeting a quick and untimely demise, and nobody cares, not all the idiots out in the streets, not the government who just opened everything, not the leaders who're using this opportunity to line their pockets.
   
   
   
8. The suppressed rage and trauma of the populace is incredible, and you don't want to be around when it explodes. You don' even want to think about it too hard because things that are Bad Stuff (TM) in other countries are another Tuesday in the crappola of the place.
   
   
   
9. Speaking of which, the Big One, the earthquake is still due, and it's gonna be a bad one. Despite all the warnings, there's nothing they intend to do about it.
   
   
   
10. The smoke, traffic, low quality groceries every piece of vegetable, medicine, none of it is checked and completely in the hands of people who sell them because the government is for sale, and the price is quite low. Even though you can't buy it. Your lifespan is shortened and the quality significantly made shit just so evil people can be richer.

Eight things to NOT say in the Hindu heaven

1. Say, anyone heart of a Yeshu Khrist guy here, old Musaa, anyone? I was expecting to find them here...They've gotta to be here somewhere...
   
   
2. Yum, I would KILL for some A1 Kobe beef, if this is literally heaven shouldn't there be an infinity of it?
    
3. Okay so let me get this straight, people who sleep with their family get sent to be tortured, unless they're a super duper god in which case everyone just looks elsewhere super awkwardly and pretends nothing is wrong?
    
4. I don't get why 'be kind and peaceful towards everyone' doesn't apply for everyone, specially the Gods.
    
5. It's unfair that the Gods wanting to boink religious powerful kind knowledgeable people's wives is quickly forgiven but regular people do that and they're condemned into hell for all eternity.
    
6. Wait why are none of my friends with a sligtly different name not here, despite them having done just as well as I did, if not better?
    
7. So you're telling me that she didn't get in because she was an overachiever and accomplished way beyond what was in her plate and that is not expected her, and is therefore irreligious and evil? That. Sounds. So. Wrong?
    
8. Hmm, maybe I prefer the land of the fat man with big mustache who rides on the water buffalo.

On chocolate

09/30/2020

Last year I wrote about how I'm not a chocolate snob, I just like good chocolates for myself.

In recent days I've been eating chocolate every day. Dark chocolate, 70-85% mostly. A bar a day it's gotten to. And I love it. It's not too sweet and elevates my mood remarkably well, almost like magic. Or sleeping inside a warm blanket on a cold rainy windy day.

The more I eat good chocolate, the higher my standards will become I imagine as I start being able to identify the subtle differences in the fermentation, and chocolate-making processes. For example, there's slight 'dryness' in the chocolate I just had, something I noticed some minutes after finishing the bar.

My roommates won't eat anything both milk chocolate, which is all great because I don't have to share! It's changing slowly as they're getting used to the new, complex flavors of the chocolates I bring.

More on this in the coming days.

11/09/2020

Here I write about how I've been eating too much chocolate and it's becoming a problem and how I've started spending hundreds of dollars on good chocolate. Also, $4 a bar chocolates, and that's just the beginning.

Fluffernutter lunch, TJ's trip, rain day, Indian TJ dinner, hatewatching entourage [Wed 30]

 I'm writing this three days after the fact, and I may have very vague recollections of the day due to the fact that I don't have too many distinctive memories, or photos from this day. Truth be told, this type of day is why I maintain this rather tedious journal, to remember the days that weren't worth anything but were still valuable in my learning, they helped me grow as a person.

What I do remember is that I cleaned the room real good, to clear my head of all the confusion and mess and disorganization, and that it was so very tiring, decided to take the following day off.

The morning was rainy and dark, I see from the photos, and none of the boys went on a walk due to that. I too skipped the walk.

I ate peanut-butter-and fluff sammich for lunch because there wasn't much around I was bored and tired and annoyed of everything happening in life. It's sad that the lowest of the lowest I think I've gone is what many people have for their everyday lunch, the 'brown-bag lunch' of fluffernutter. Realized that eating something, anything really is a thousand a billion times better than eating nothing because mood things, food really helps improve your mood so much. Specially when there's no one around. And with the dangerous cocktail of little social contact, little sleep and little food, a regular human person can become a bomb, ready to explode. Honestly that's something the world needs to be wary about and worry for a lot. Like how can things get so...explody so fast, etcetera.

In the evening I went on a walk to Trader Joe's at assembly, talked to but mostly smiled at two of the cutest people I've interacted with in recent times. Not really a big deal because haven't talked to many new people at all, still something that made me happy. It was full moon so the photos I took of the new casino and the moon and the lights were amazing.

Had to stay in the line or 15 minutes to get in, spent 20 minutes in there. Don't know if I planned it or it just happened thanks to fate but the ethiopian girl and her friend and I went in at the same time and got out together. Has to count for something.

I didn't get too many groceries, just enough for a few days. Barely twenty bucks of supplies. Including two meals worth of frozen Indian food that I hung a lot of hopes on but it was only mediocre. Should have gotten a naan maybe, or lowered my expectations haah.

Got back, had roti and vegetable, a whole lot of TJ's brand cheetos. Wanted to write, should have written but instead I got distracted and kept on watching episode after episode of entourage, despite this being the last day of the month when I should be writing the most. Watched till 1am, felt too bad, and went to sleep. It was wild. I didn't enjoy those goddamn episodes at all either.

Medford Sq walk, eap visit, crappy eggplant parm, presidential debates [Tue 29]

I'm writing this four days after the fact and massively backdating it because shame shame I've not been on top of my shit.

Wanted to get up early because I'd told SS I'd be over but that didn't work out thanks to staying up till 4m, got up quite very late. Jumped straight to work. Lots of meetings and working sessions so that way it was productive.

During the lunch hour, went on a walk. Went all the way to Medford Square, thought I dropped something, everything was good and fine. My plan was to go there early in the morning and get me some breakfast, but that plan didn't work out, such a joke. On my way back dropped by the japanese market to see if they had any natto, didn't see any and was in a bit of a rush to ask or search so hurried back home.

Had a 45-minute conversation with an eap person that I'm talking to now about motivation and how I can get more shit done more productively. The conversation was good, unclear if I'm going to actually get anything out of it, but I'm glad I'm doing that. Now I have one person guiding me on my finances and another on my motivation issues, both weekly. Already feel like a rich person haaah.

Felt so tired and hungry for dinner, remember I slept for only 3 hours and the day was busy, couldn't nap much if any. And the food situation was terrible since I was out of all the groceries. So I tried getting something from the Italian Bakery next to us but they were closed, so I ordered my classic eggplant parm subs from Alex's, which is a convenience store. It's stupid but I waited in the wrong place for ten minutes before realizing that. The sub was cheap and it showed. I had digestive issues after eating it, and it was not tasty enough to still go for it. Not ordering from there again, I'd rather eat ramen instead.

Roommate PK's friend A, I and NB were over to watch the presidential debates. We talked a bunch, I came into my room because I wanted to not hear anything, and after it was over talked again. A has an aquarium which I'm jealous of, and he's also grown very skinny. A little worried, he said he was fine. He sent me photo of his aquarium the next morning, he's getting a pet shrimp as a pet for his goldfish.

Slept at 11/12, at some time, still not feeling great.

Oat pancakes, boring workday, walk workout, friend meetup, fish tacos, long chats and warns, latenight call [Mon 28]

 I write this five days from the day this happened, backdating this for a couple of days, so this is going to be a succinct summary of the happenings of the day.

Woke up probably late and lazy, didn't go on walks. Was super duper bored throughout the day. It was my first day with the team so I didn't even focus or have anything to do. So bored in fact that was chatting up with people all day long.

For lunch I had the oat pancakes. Good, healthy, I like them. Should have them more often. This was my attempt at savory oat pancakes I think, with cheese inside. It didn't work exactly as I hoped it would, but savory pancakes are not at all as bad of an idea as Americans think.

After work decided to go on a long and intense walk, body aches all around because I may have overdone it. Met up SB, it was fun though since we were both in hurry, we couldn't catch up for as long as we wanted to. Got back, felt tired and suddenly low, had the gigglies from roommates to feel better. Had taco shell with lotsa yellow rice beans and veggies, they had fish tacos I had everything but the fish. It was a massive massive meal, I felt quite full and rotund, couldn't walk straight truth be told.

Talked with SS [Phd] and friend AB on the chat for a very long time, called AB and told her to at least start considering backup plans if things here go south because that's something worth thinking about now. Sad but true.

Went to bed at 11.30 ish couldn't sleep. That's something strange I've been experiencing, the gigglies don't make me giggle and don't make me be sleepy like they used to. Couldn't sleep so hit up SK who was VERY much awake and we talked. And talked and talked.

Until 4 am.

She says in the stupor of sleeplessness there were so many jokes that I tried making that made zero sense that I had to abandon but there was one joke in my opinion and it was just so much exaggeration.

Went to sleep at what must have been a little after 4.

A tiring, exhilarating, confusing, way too long day.

I figured it out, back to regular programming soon

 Should have gotten there faster. I'm out of groceries, and haven't done my 'thrice a week' groceries in two weeks because things have come up, I didn't feel well etc etc. So I've been quite hungry for the entirety of the day, and as evening comes by I scrounge something or another. Which means I'm grumpy all day, too tired in the evening so gobble whatever is up to eat and take a nice long sleep, disrupting the following day's plans. Note to self. Eat healthily no matter what.

Gotta learn to debug myself and fix the issues quicker now.

Dummy post to waste time

 This is just a dummy post, I'm not even going to be writing anything after this. It's just here to increase the post count and chill. Sleep cycle has been all over the place, work has been so busy and tiring, personal projects have been a mess generally and walking has been irregular. Haven't done groceries in who even remembers anymore. This is a breakdown of internal law and order, something this country might see soon in a month. Just crazy I tellya. So crazy.

Late nights and no sleeps

 Everything is off the schedule again, things be messed up man. The farming project has been a failure, I just need to admit it completely very soon. Things are on the downward trend with my projects. Too tired, sad and disappointed. Taking a day off of work to get projects back in order soon.

Pause

Regular programming is disrupted due to the incoming events in this country and in the world. It is worth worrying about. Can't make myself write. The weekend didn't help, but things are not going well to say the least...not with me but the world generally. We'll see how it goes from here. Used the work EAP for the first time. Good choice.

The nerd

The heart
Skips a beat
The brain says,
Get a life
Nerd.

Late to be up, inspirational catchups, great fried rice, movies, walk, nap, youtube dinner and catchup, lazy day [Sun 27]

 I write this at 11.35 of the same day. Because I didn't do any posts the entire weekend I'm in post-deficit by 6 after this. If I get get two more posts written before I got to sleep, it won't be that much of a catch-up tomorrow. Some weekends are more productive in terms of writing this was just so goddamn busy and tiring despite not working on a big project.

Got up late because I went to sleep at 3am the night before. After getting up I talked for 2 hours with BK, an  hour with TD, and spent like 45 minutes staring at the ceiling. PK 'tricked' me into turning the leftover rice from the night before into fried rice, I got carried away with it and spent a good half hour making it. Just one whole onion, tonne of ginger-garlic paste, many different spices, lots of rice, soy sauce, cut kimchi, and five scrambled eggs slightly cooked. PK was unreasonably happy about it in the evening -- PK and ND had already had their lunch by the time I was done -- but he has low standards with food, we already know that.

Roommate BB and R came back from their really amazing day out in the cape it seemed amazing, they got close to sharks, saw seals, had the high tide come right upto their tables in the restaurant, heated swimming pools and what not. What an amazing time they had this weekend. Timeshares are not a total and complete scam after all as long as you get very very lucky and can time it right and are so bad at math or uncaring you don't want to run the numbers on how much money you'd be spending on hotel rooms otherwise.

ND was watching the hindi movie eenglish veenglish, watched a little bit of it couldn't handle because it's too sad and touching. Packed up went for a walk. Went uphill to winterhill all the way to Boston ave and walked back. I've done it in 45 minutes, fifty max, this time it took me an hour and a half because there wasn't much energy in my body. I'm not well rested yet unfortunately and the weekend's over. Wish something good happens so I can get my energy back.

After getting back [or was it before going] I napped for an hour/hour-and-half while ignoring weird squeaky noises that roommate BB says was the sound of our neighbor doing woodworking. Thank god for that because I thought it was people having sex.

Watched youtube for an hour or so, hungout with ND PK and BB in the common room, had dinner took compliments for the food, got caught on on the happenings of the day. Came to my room, just stared at the sky, checked time-wasting sites and did nothing. Finally got myself to start writing at the end of the weekend because it's important, for my habit and for documentation.

Really should write a bit more this evening.

Oat pancake, houseparty preparations, haymarket, uniqlo, gifts from friends, plantains, amazing houseparty, late to bed [Sat 26]

 Got up at 8am, so fresh and ready to take on the world. Since there was literally nothing else in the house to eat, made some oat pancakes using the protein pancake powder, after like eight months and boy I'd missed those, a spoonful or two of sugar and oof it's an amazing breakfast. Only downside is it needs not a small time investment which means it's not viable for weekday breakfast. Wonder if there's a way around that. Hmm. I've been thinking about having nutritious fermented flour porridge and pancakes anyway, gotta try to make this fit into my plans too.

Roommate PK went to Wegmans with RD, who lives nearby us. I was at their place for dinner last month. Cleaned up the house, hid all the crappy things from the 'bar' area in our living room with books so it looked like we were super educated and into the arts and not disorganized. Also, and I'm really excited about this though it may not seem much, threw away old plants that had been dead for years, and reconfigured the decorations so now we don't look like we live in an apartment of hapless bachelors, just a little slightly underdecorated.

Had to go to Haymarket because I already made plans. Wanted to walk all the way but realized there was no point in wasting all the time walking their if my aim was to get the goods and not for the sake of a workout. Walked towards the 89 route, got a bus right on time and reached haymarket even before google predicted. Spent maybe a good 45 minutes doing several rounds of the stalls. The problem with this trip compared to the earlier one a few weeks ago was that I was in too early so ginger was still at a dollar a pound and not three pounds at a dollar. skipped that. Instead I bought 10 pounds of carrots for four dollars and 12 plantains for 1 dollar. Didn't plan on buying the veggies but saw 'em and they were cheap and the ginger-vendor was not willing to negotiate. What a good decision that would turn out later on!

Was bored so walked around haymarket and faneuil hall, saw how lively it was. It's nowhere near what it would be in a normal year but the crowds are increasing at least, people are eating out. Unfortunately a few businesses have packed up from the hall which is a great loss. Still there's some life in there which was quite heartening.

Walked by Uniqlo, remembered having a conversation with roommates about it. We agree their wares are well-priced and trendy. Specially good for me because they make in my size! Decided to check out what was new. Found a cute corduroy shirt, I have many trousers but no corduroy shirt so got it. Looked at a few pairs of super cute underpants, saw uniqlo's masks, looked em up online and apparently they're selling like hotcakes so got them too. By the end of the trip I must have saved maybe seven bucks in carrots but spent ten times that in merchandise I wouldn't otherwise buy.

Took the orange line and the bus 95 back home. Talked to friend N on the way, we're making plans for a weekend getaway in NYC for the upcoming week, more new coming.

Back home I saw a few large packages waiting for me at the doorstep. Carried them up and opened, saw they were carboys and fermentation bottles that PN sent from VA. SO nice of them, now I have to get them super-duper nice housewarming gift. Put on my new shirt and a denim trouser just for show, everyone agreed I looked like, their words not mine, killer.

Fried some savory plantains, they were so good they didn't last long. SRP 'borrowed' a few to make dessert-plantains to be eaten with ice-cream, they weren't as popular as mine, no slight intended. He came several hours earlier than everyone.

The houseparty following was amazing.

RD and her husb dai came over, and his brother too. APK (MIT) was over and so was JS who left after an hour. ND was obviously around. It was a decent sized group folks laughed so much and had a lot of fun. RD couple stayed until 11 which is the latest they've been at our place ever.

SRP and the house talked until 2.30 in the morning, I called it a night, he took an uber home. Had trouble sleeping, what an amazing day, an amazing night too.

Leftovers meal, entourage distraction, heater deilvery, latenight walk [Fri 25]

 Got up quite early in the morning, did a bit of novel planning, didn't walk because it was a Friday, and just chilled. I'm riting this two days after on the Sunday evening following so some of the details may be inaccurate. Eat me.

Had a couple of meetings throughout the day, they went well. Meeting with the manager went well. I'm starting on a new team, bunch of catching up with folks from the team, organization of the existing projects. Also on Friday got involved with fermentation projects again as I'm looking for something less long term than the farming project I'm doing but longer term than yogurt-making which takes a day. So checked out a bunch of ideal fermentation projects from the reference books. It seems the indian recipe for kaanji which is fermented beets and carrots with mustard chilli and salt in the water is ideal. Interesting and different than other types of fermentation too because usually the alcohol producing bacteria are lazy in salty conditions but it seems when everything else is dead thanks to the saltiness and the antibacterial properties of mustard which basically disrupts their genetic makeup and makes reproduction pretty impossible, they can be quite active.

For lunch had chocolate and nuts and fruits, the usual throughout the day. In the evening, after work, made a sandwich with hummus, mayo, cucumber, and cheese, which is a classic Nepali sandwich. It was quite good, I should eat more of that. Additional note here: I'm out of hummus, gotta figure out if I want to buy more or make some. Either way it's grocery time. At this point in time, there was literally 'nothing' in our fridge that was ready to eat. We were all very much finished with our groceries so I was making do with whatever scrap I could get by with.

ND was over, roommate PK was watching entourage she wasn't very interested. I got hooked and ended up watching a couple of episodes there. We're in the middle of season four, haven't followed it as well as roommate PK has, have missed many episodes in between but it does get my attention when I sit down to watch. The walking plan was disrupted and I felt crappy because I didn't walk to entire day.

TO make up for it I left for my walk at 8.15 in the evening. Walked to Porter, then to Harvard Square. Chilled by the river for several minutes took in the fresh river air, and walked back at a leisurely pace. By the time I got back, it was half past ten, possibly closer to 11. Youtubed a bit, and just passed out while trying to not go to sleep...I wanted to get in at least a post or two before sleeping but couldn't help it. It was tiring okay guys.

I should learn to sew my buttons at this point, really

 As regular reader(s) -- who am I kidding, the one person who checks these out -- of this blog are well aware, I'm starting to consider myself a small king of the world in recent days. I've successfully conquered the mountain of fixing my phone, the dangerous river of cooking foods I've only had and never looked at recipes for, and got over the chasm of executing difficult multi-step recipes that need an entire day's worth of attention. What I'm yet to conquer and win over is sewing back buttons for my shirts. Sad but very true.

Not that I've not tried. There's three sewing sets in my room at this point. I've watched dozens and dozens of youtube videos on how to sew your buttons back together. And some of my favourite shirts are out of action because they are missing their buttons. And yet I sit here like a helpless child, waiting for a friend who is more technically capable, smart, dexterous , and able than myself. The wait has gone for far too long, years and years. Last year with SS [the former beat-causer of my heart long story go back in the archives for deets] she bought a sewing machine and I was so very close to getting a new hobby and exciting set of skills. Didn't work out.

 I went for the vacation and covid happened and now they've moved away to their village, here I am now pretending in front of my friends and roommates that I still talk to her and keep in touch when in reality I don't know what the hell is happening. Gotta be careful, my roommate PK said the other day, 'oh so she's going golfing today huh' at which I paused for a couple of seconds before realizing that must have been an insta story and replied 'oh haah yeah  chill new hampshire people'. Which made it sound like haha I knew it of course but I didn't and now I have a different set of travel plans in motion just to avoid the embarrassment of admitting I'm not in touch. You know you're a loser, you don't want the world to know it too, what you definitely don't want is to admit in front of the world you're a loser who also has lied through his teeth to not come to terms with it.

In any case, it's time I started working on the sewing situation. It can't take longer than an hour, or two or even three, and once I know I know, you know? Gonna buy the same set of buttons nice expensive ones and put 'em on everything.

Bought some corduroy shirt, and got slick denim. It'll be nice to have denim shirts back in rotation to wear with corduroy pants.

On Plantains

 Over the weekend fried some sweet ripe plantains that I brought in from Haymarket. The seller was 'nice' to me, his wares were rotting away and it seemed nobody else wanted them so he gave me 12 for a dollar. Brought it in, fried up a bunch in several batches and added some salt to it. So popular it was that people were having trouble keeping their hands off of it. Really, by the time the guests came in it was almost done, so I had to personally take it to the guests so they got a bit or two at least. It was sketchy af I know but that's the only way people can get to eat them plantains.

First time I tried making plantains, the sweet fried ones. And not bananas. I've tried frying bananas for desserts, they've gone nowhere as well. Now that I've done it I feel so bad for never having done it. I've written about how much I like fried plantains with rice and  black beans. If I knew it was this simple never would I spend dozens of dollars on the simple dish! All I need to do is make smoked black beans, for which I just looked up a recipe and it appears the smokiness comes just from the paprika which is simple to make. Really simple.

Don't want to stress on this too much but I do really love me some plantains in all forms including whatever they will make from it, including the plantain-flour materials. I'm so close to being able to make kelewele on my own that it makes me horny just to think about it. I'll be a master of all my cooking.

Speaking of cooking and mastery of it, thinking about fermenting flours and making porridges and 'dhido' out of them. It appears that making kenkey or banku is not too too difficult, you want to ferment the flours in open air, boil them until the right texture with a lot of water and that's it, add your salts and spices, take your kelewele on the side, make a stew probably 'bhaaji' from the 'pav bhaji' it's blended veggies that can me eaten with anything and I've got a solid West African comfort food that doesn't involve rice. I"m excited.

The taxes are out and the mfker paid less than anyone else in the country

 And pretends to be everything else he's not I'm so tired of all the shit happening this is frustrating, why the fuck am I paying all my money as taxes when the rich people don't have to pay anything, are laws not the same for everyone or what, this is all bullshit. F this crap.

Early wake, wegmans walk and poop, meetingful day, lazy but true walk, heavy dinner, American pie, hindi movie, the feelies [Thu 24]

 Things have been going well, walk and wake wise in very recent days. I say that as I write the day after at 8.30 in the morning, having ignored the morning walk plan completely because my favourite podcast was up despite getting up at 7 and not going back to sleep. One baby step at a time. Step. Step. Step

This day, I put an alarm for 6.50, kept snoozing till 7.20, headed out for a walk, went to wegmans, used their bathroom. Morning bathroom in our household is tricky as roommate BB spends a conservative hour in there after coming back from his walks, which has led to many a potentially uhh explosive situation around here, fortunately no accidents for me. Not yet anyway. That has been a motivation for many a man in here to find alternative places to relieve the pressure so to speak at an early hour. When I was in Wegman's I toured the bathroom and used it, as an evaluation for early morning emergency evacuation. Guess what, I already knew this and have written about it in the past, but that was one of the most peaceful, nice bathroom experiences. Again. Wegman's bathrooms rock so hard. Honh honh honh.

So yeah, used bathroom, ambled about the store looking for anything good to buy. Nothing, couldn't find whatever I may have been looking for. Tempeh was not there, that's something I'm looking to start experimenting with again so that was bit of a bummer but I hear you can't use premade tempeh as a starter since they pasteurize or sterilize them before selling. Woulda been cool to try. The entire trip took a solid hour, could have been even more. In all that time I could have done one of my longer walk circuits but wouldn't have been able to use the bathroom with such freedom. Tradeoffs tradeoffs.

By the time I was back there was no time to write anything, signed into work right away. It was gonna be a long long day for me with six meetings on my schedule three of them hour-long. The workday wasn't too bad. For lunch I had toast with scrambled eggs slathered in butter, and the last of my beans mix. Turned it all into a beany eggy sandwich, mayo and hummus slathered on the breads. Tasted like breakfast burrito, that's what it was too.

After work and during lunch I spent some time gluing my phone back together. The work's not perfect it still smells like glue, the back plate is coming apart due to uneven force applied and the phone is uncomfortably snug perhaps even sticking a little bit out of its cover but there's no problem as long as the phone works I'm happy. The glue work is horrible it'll probably wear out. And um while trying to pry the screen apart I hurt the screen a teeny weeny bit so there's a dark transparent 'smudge' internal to the screen, but nothing that cannot be lived with. You live and learn.

After work did a bunch of writing, took a nice long shower with a long series of powerful songs by women. I'm going to write about WAP soon, unclear what it's going to be but there's going to be a post here soon so gotta look out for that. Went on a walk, didn't feel like it, thought it was going to be short, but had earphones on and legs on the walk just kept on going so I took the 'city' route, took me an hour and ten minutes. Too long but I walked despite feeling a tired and weary.

After getting back talked to roommate PK. ND was over too. Roommate BB is gone to the Cape to his mom's timeshare, we made jokes about that during the day. Talked a bunch, couldn't find anything agreeable to watch. We watched the first American pie movie, people didn't believe me when I told them it was the first time I was seeing the movie. It's pretty good, but it's not something i'd go total bonkers over. Funny yeah.

Made dinner as we watched the movie. Garlic bread, melted cheese on one side, hummus slathered on the other, kimchi in between. Four slices of those and boy o boy I'm probably done for today too which is the next day. It was amazing, so filling. Toasted it u in our relatively new toaster oven and the strange thing is it toasts the slice so goddamn fast it's hard to keep up with the instructions that are for conventional oven. But the savings in electricity oof, I'm happy about that.

Oh yeah, in the morning got PN's gift they sent me a package of Campden tablets, said they're sending a bunch of more things. I was embarrassed I said because that'd mean I'd have to send so much more to them for their housewarming. ND started watching Dil Chahta Hai movie, I listened to a very old hindi song got the feelies, spent the following to hours listening to the entire series of hindi songs finally convinced myself to do some crap writing here, went to bed at 12.15 or so slept soon after.

It was a co-incidence that we listened to touching old songs, in my walk I was just thinking how I don't listen to much songs so it's really easy for my mood to change when I do listen. People listen to enjoy songs I mostly do to change my mood or just do it when I'm 'addicted'. So strange.

Feelin' the feels

There's a reason I don't like feeling. It's not because I'm a stone-cold  rockhearted asshole that doesn't enjoy the softness of grass the smell of flowers. Rather I enjoy them too much I feel every vibration of a song every pause every lovelorn pained chord. It's no fun. It's tiring and confusing, overwhelming. It's no way to spend your days.

This evening ND was watching a hindi movie and we got to the topic of hindi songs, I put on an hold one [mere saamne wali khidki mein], and that's how I got into this rabbithole of great touching songs that make me feel the feels. So fun, so fulling so full. So bright is the world, such is the passion, the nostalgia of times gone by and disappointment at the auto-tuned bullshit of recent years (exactly two decades after the rest of the world was introduced to them) that it hurts. I'm not mad and angry because I'm uncaring, it's because there's so much too care, too much it hurts every little mistake and act of disappointment and treachery.

Which is why I didn't get my writing in order, also why this is a little half-hearted. Swimming in emotions bro so many lovely emotions too many emotions. Like an angsty teenage girl in her diaries. Which this is really but those emotions I like being done with they're too hard to be not addicted to. It's more about self control and organization now. I'm a goddamn adult man, need to keep all the feels and emotions in check unless I want to expose them strategically to use them to fuel my writing. Weaponise emotions, as it might be said.

The basement diaries part II

 Followup of this

Prompt: You are renting a room in someone’s house as you transition to living in a new city. The owner tells you that basement is absolutely, 100% off limits. You don’t bat an eye at this request, until you start hearing noises from the basement at night. After several week of this, you sneak downstairs to see what’s going on. Finish the scene.

...my curiosity got the best of me. A few weeks of hearing the noises, and I made my way to the basement when I was confident nobody was home.

My world turned over when I discovered the secret of the basement.

I knew what they were, I didn't imagine they'd move all the way.

A minor congregation of kyaah. Fucking kyaah from fucking Kathmandu valley, settled down and chilling in this dinky-ass basement in remote Queens

Monsters used to have rules. You can't go further away from your origin place by a certain distance. You don't expect vampires, the scandinavian one, in Singapore. The heat and the humidity would cook them alive. Or uh, dead. You know what I mean. There's no Sasquatch chilling in New Zealand because they don't decide to get on a plane one day, show their passport with the funny face at the checkin counter and setup home in Wellington. That's not something that happened.

Oh then the monsters got curious, they got bored of their origins. They found out ways to travel. The Count's London travels weren't successful but his progeny made a successful wave in America. And their followers did end up in Wellington after all. The Sasquatch didn't move to the South Pole maybe, but surely the Yeti and Sasquatch share some recent immigrant ancestors who decided they've had enough with the cold boring deserts and changed places? If Ananse could migrate from West Africa to Florida, guess these creeps could come to America too.

A Khyaah unprovoked is of no great danger. Piss the creature though, or attempt at throwing it out of your house, and terrible luck awaits you. A series of misfortune after another. The white kyaah brings good luck as long as you give it a room to stay and let it go about its ways ignoring its existence. Khyaahs don't like being disturbed, they expect the courtesy of privacy.

Two of the dorks knew me. From back home. I was involved in uhh a minor scam...of sorts...with them. At a time it was astonishing because they seemed to be after the money and I couldn't imagine why a supernatural being of their caliber would need money. This made sense. They were planning to change homes, so to speak. They nodded at me. I cleared my throat, gave them a meek smile and bowed a little. They went back to doing whatever strange circle dance thing they were up to. I shut the door tight. The next day I ordered a large padlock and put it on the door, to make sure nobody had to encounter the discomfort that I went through. I imagined that was my last encounter with them, they're not that pleasant to be around and it's often hard to have a conversation when you don't share common interests or worldviews. How wrong I was. But that's a topic for a different story.

I didn't tell about it to anyone, never went down to the basement again

Dave Barry is Killing It

 He's got a machete, and he's plowing down people...with his humor. Dude's been writing for fifty plus years now, and he's funny. Yes, his level of funny is ideally suited for a fifteen year boy who wants to grow up to become a...you guessed it, a humor writer. And yes his jokes are quite low-risk and easy to make. And it's quite likely he's okay with it. I would be okay with it. Being read by teenagers is cool.

After a ten-minute jaunt into his wikipedia and tvtropes pages I realize he's done a lot more than being read by nerdy teens. sigh.

Annoying as it is to admit, there was a time when maybe I wasn't laugh out funny but a little bit funny. You wouldn't let me run a comedy club doing four shows a week but if the comedian was late and there was dead space in, I could go fill in. Not in a comedy club but an essay version of one. I could make people groan grunt moan a little bit hooo boy lets not even go into the moaning bit, and they'd come out of it happy. Unlike now when they come sad tired and irritable. I blame the vaccines. My writing has gone down over the years, I can't funny and there's not much to celebrate. Jeebus christ what a chore.

And dave barry is killing it just killing it, his grandchild is of my age almost he still writes the funnies for the papers, publishes nonfiction once every two or three years, makes movies tv shows and also writes a tonne of fiction. I'm here sitting in this dingy dark room that hasn't been cleaned for a good part of this century desperately trying to egg myself into write a novel. Ahh what a brilliant novel it will be the readers ohh the readers how brilliant they're gonna be so impressed they'll piss their pants when they read what I have to offer, I think, with no clue what to write next, disappointing myself. Writers usually don't begin by disappointing themselves. Don't know, never met one in real life. Because I don't write well so they don't want the company of an untalented desperate hack who just tries so hard too hard its cringe-worthy.

Cringe cringe cringe.

How many tales can you spin out of a regular middle class okay maybe a little more upper than middle class existence in florida, in miami a city I would never have thought to provide inspirational matreial toa man of his calibre, of any calibre. He spun out nothingness into a yarn a hundred million people have held on to, what a god of creativity, surely he's been blessed by the coterie of his deities.

Why can't my deities do me something good, all they do is punish punish punish ask for more, ask total obedience and loyalty and in return? Nothing not even an acknowledging nod. Just on their own fucking around harrassing civilians testing those who really needn't be tested because they're in an effing crisis right now. Having fun, those fools. Sigh. It's a little tough sometimes.

What an asshole, Dave Barry. How is he doing so well. Life is unfair, and that is the unfairest of them all.

Disappointing brinner, evening nap, writing catchup, timely sleep, repaired phone [Wed 23]

 The entire morning half of the day was a total and complete waste of time. Nothing worth talking about except the things I didn't do: I didn't go for morning walk because didn't feel like it, didn't eat anything because not hungry enough, except the banana and fruit that's sorta' become my 'thing'.

So busy at work, too many meetings. Got a bunch of things written here though, so some good outcome.

In the evening, after work ended I was dying with hunger because the entire day I'd spent on nuts and fruits and chocolate. So I did the stupidest laziest thing possible. Heated like a sixth of a stick of butter until it completely melted, threw down garlic sauce, garlic, soy sauce and something else that was spicy, toasted a couple of slices of bread, dipped them into the garlic butter and that was my brinner. Brunch-dinner. That's it. It wasn't enough for my body obviously, which is why it started acting weirdly.

So I slept. I napped for two hours in the evening. Such sound sleep. Great times! I should be napping more often, naps shouldn't have to fuck up one's sleeping matter, what a bummer.

Felt refreshed and full of energy so wrote so many posts. Like I'm caught up after this post finally even planned novel, did some character planning and created character arcs. Going into details of the character later, but basic character outlining is done. Next comes expanding 5 lines into 25 lines, a page, page and a half summary of the novel. There's not going to be much in the name of 'plot' since it's supposed to be a character-driven novel, which means I don't know how to write scenes where something happens and move the plot along. NO matter I'll keep trying and trying until I learn. Which is actually not the best way to learn things, but this is MY life so unless you have help to offer, please don't comment okay.

So my phone was pretty much fully repaired, hadn't yet put in the screen and backplate together with glue but used it throughout the day. Realized how much I missed and loved that trusty old nokia. If I hadn't fucked things up royally I'd have gotten there five days ago and with 30 bucks in my pocket but the screen would be broken so a little bit on this, a little bit on that.

Went to bed at 11.20'ish, could have gone at 10.30, smartly realized no sleep would take place anyway so wrote a bunch more. Actually slept at half past twelve possibly even better but it doesn't matter I slept on time and got a lot of exciting writing done, it's an encouraging sign for the things to come in the future.

I still have novel-writing aspirations

 In case the dream got left by the wayside, as my recent posts would have you believe, no I'm still working towards a novel. I'm using the snowflake method as I posted about a bunch the last year. Working through character sheets, scenes, all of that. Have an excel sheet and everything. It's hard work, needs a lot of thinking and planning ahead. It's getting somewhere and I'm a little excited for this.

Once I'm done with a scene list, a 1/2 page summary and the full character sheet, it should be writing all the time. The homework that goes into it is insane, but it's given me some great visibility into what goes inside a writer's head. Also something I'm very excited about: daily writing here has broadened the scope of possibilities of where my stories could go to. For example, with the khyaak story I was stuck. The khyaak forces a lame guy to kill a bunch of people, he doesn't want to in the beginning but he does. And eventually he starts enjoying it. We realize in the end maybe the khyaak is acting according to its nature, it's the human that's evil. That would have been a pretty great turn, but the journey would be challenging. There's only so many murders until the reader gets bored, didn't know how I'd stretch out the plot.

Now I realize I don't have to wait till the novel end. Midway in the novel we can turn from the khyaak's point of view and realize we've been victims of an unreliable narrator. The khyaak wasn't really telling the man to kill anyone specifically, just the generalities that would have been satisfied by doing something peacefully entirely. He didn't turn into murderous intent, he always had them and was just looking for an outlet, an excuse. So now the second half can be the full-out chase of our previously protagonist, the conflict between the monster and the man, the man's attempts at evasion etcetera. In the end he blames the kyaak and people believe him, nobody wants to believe there's so much evil inside a human though they know in their hearts he's the murderer.

Learning in progress.

The basement diaries part I

Prompt: You are renting a room in someone’s house as you transition to living in a new city. The owner tells you that basement is absolutely, 100% off limits. You don’t bat an eye at this request, until you start hearing noises from the basement at night. After several week of this, you sneak downstairs to see what’s going on. Finish the scene.

Source

Note: I obviously failed at following the prompt. This is therefore going to be a two-parter.

I had been warned.

They were a nice Nepali couple, with a daughter who was in the ninth grade. They lived in the second floor, I took the drafty tattery first floor. There was a makeshift kitchen and a toilet that could give any charpi in Kathmandu a run for its money. I was desperate, first time moving to the City. Friends told me to get a nicer apartment closer to Manhattan. Money was not the object. Time was. The job was starting in ten days and nothing had been confirmed. They were rather desperate for someone to help them pay the monthly payments. Nationalistic feelings may have been involved.

You can take the room, the landlord told me as I signed the lease, but under no circumstances must you go to the basement. It is nothing bad, we have some personal items there and the lock hasn't worked so haven't been able to do that. Have put that in the lease too.

Oh what have you there, dead bodies or something, I said laughing, should I be worried about my safety. Maybe I'll sleep with a khukuri under my pillow.

No nothing like that, he said, in a tone so serious I got nervous. It's nothing bad or illegal just some personal property that if I find you were there there could be room for me to accuse of doing bad things to it, if something were to happen to it. So I'm doing it for your on protection. Don't worry bhai, we are a very normal couple we have a daughter we are not some psycho American murders it'll be fine.

His mood had improved. I didn't ask him about the basement again. People have their quirks. It could be the gold and diamond jewelleries that people store in bank vaults in Kathmandu. Or something else. Not dead bodies, as he so cleanly explained. Nothing worth losing sleep over. I let it go.

Few months later in the middle of the New York winter I heard noises from the basement at night. The first time I thought it was rats or mice scurrying about. Cockroaches possibly. Or a rat-cockroach hybrid which had been discovered in the subway system. Some days after that, I heard it again. On Saturday night it was quite loud. Those rattles and creaks weren't regular, couldn't have been made by a rat by the way they sounded. A few times in the height of suspicion when nobody was in the house I shouted at the basement from the floor. Hello, is anybody there, do you need help? You can tell me now nobody is at home. Hello. I said that in the four languages I knew. No replies. Not even a tap. I daren't do that at night, at the fear of losing my lease. It's not like the ghost stories where you just do whatever. A place to live in matters when you're in the city.

My curiosity got the best of me. A few weeks of hearing the noises, and I made my way to the basement when I was confident nobody was home.

My world turned over when I discovered the secret of the basement.

State of matters

It's 2020. Things ought to be better. They aren't. Scary times are ahead.

Election looks riggable. Dictatorship on horizon. Court gone. Old lazy gone. Increased religiosity. More intolerance. Xenophobia. Economic downturn. Wars. Climate crisis. Civil war potentially. No place to hide. Home isn't better.

Looked up projections. It's not truth. They look encouraging. Still worried.

Told friends to make backup. Go somewhere safe. Escape plans. Anything can happen. Literally anything. Sad but true. Fuck Putin.

Nepali news is disappointing. Increased shamelessness. Carelessness. No more pretension. Hollowed-out tree is falling down. What institutions? So madd.

Worried about family. Friends. Americans. No place to hide.

Pandemic is ongoing. Forgot about that. Ouch. It's getting worse.

Personal plans are in shambles. NZ is closed. Sigh.

Folks are deleting FB. Finally. Some netflix documentary. Silver lining.

I'm doing fine. Most people aren't. Loneliness and stress diseases. This will be another epidemic. Shit.

There's the office. Podcasts. Writing. Schitt's Creek. Small things.

Reach out to friends and family. They help. They matter.

State of matters is bad. Real bad. Hope things work out.

Kimchi sandwich, fixed phone, solid walk, entourage, king of the world [Tue 22]

Went to bed at 12.15, after writing for an hour and half or so.

It's been troubling recently, with the politics and what not. Having to convince myself everything is fine, the world is not burning. Really hope the world is not burning, and I'm not like that dog who's in the middle of the fire drinking tea.

Preceding that, roommates both insisted I try some of the gigglies before that, been trying to avoid it, they insisted said it was a new flavor or whatever. One puff and I was out, don't enjoy it at all. Raided the kitchen for the pasta they made and almost finished the leftovers. Stared at the tv, and watched the last couple of episodes of James May in Japan. Good show and now it's done. I can write now. Quite proud of myself that I got writing even after feeling the gigglies. Need to be more disciplined with it.

That was after I watched two episodes of Entourage, we're in season four almost and I'm getting bored. We all are. As I write this the next evening at 8.20, roommates outside are watching The Office instead of it. We're over it, the formulaic execution is boring and the jokes aren't great enough to pull it off. Besides, it's aged poorly.

At 6.40 I headed out for a walk, my regular route towards assembly, cross the river, to the par, walk to Wegmans etcetera. Chilled by wegmans for half an hour or so, needed to buy tempeh and chip clips didn't find either. Bought a bottle of seltzer because gotta' have something from the long trip.

After work caught up on writing, listened to podcasts, hung out with roommates, watched youtubes etcetera.

Starting at 4, until about 5, worked towards fixing my phone, the post has been published detailing what happened and what I did. I was feeling bored, just for fun, unscrewed all the parts and put in the charging circuit. Couple of minutes later as I felt bored again, removed the front screen completely and installed the new ditigizer screen combo. Waited for some more time and put it all together. Some time even after that glued the back end of the phone. It's poorly put on and is coming apart, need to redo that. And the front screen is not glued in at all, it's just sticking due to the cover. I'm afraid I'm going to break this all after the long journey. Need to work on that.

Woke up early, two posts in the morning, went out for walk in the nearby park, one round and back. Work was slow and lazy, couple of meetings etcetera. For lunch I got quite creative, had it a little later than usual: two slices of toasted bread, hummus heaped generously on one, mayo on other, cheese piled on one, bean mixed on another, slices of pickle and kimchi added on top. Forced it all together into a sandwich and yum! It wasn't bad, and if I worked the bread right and tweaked the flavor combinations a bit, this could be a legit thing they could be selling in the stores. People have already done it obviously I looked up on google and youtube, but this could go mainstream, it's that good.

The post-loot

 After months of planning, you and two of your friends pull off a major scam and steal $10 million dollars from a Vegas Casino. Your tracks are completely covered, there's no way they can track it to you guys and you've escaped to a far away country. While you lay in your bed, dreaming of spending your share, you overhear your friends in the next room—plotting to kill you! Write this scene and what happens next.
Source

Quiet! Comes in the loud whisper, the loudest of whispers I've heard, he might here you. My interest is piqued. I hold my breath close my eyes shut and cover my face with the blanket so they don't suspect I'm up.

Nothing to worry about, he sleeps like Kumbhakarna, probably won't be up until tomorrow morning. And that too we'd have to wake him up, says the fat idiot. There's two of them, the fat one and the short one. The fat one is smarter but nobody takes him seriously. The short one looks like he's smart and he dresses quite well but he doesn't understand complicated things. During the entire project he had no idea what was happening half the time. We had to explain to him explicitly what he had to do next and why and he'd execute it right away but the poor sod didn't know the big picture. Which was all good for us because if he got caught, which was not unlikely since he didn't know exactly what to lie about and what to, he wouldn't have much to tell anyone. Instead they might just let him go on account of idiocy, no one so stupid could be a part of that complex of a plan, they'd think.

I'm...I'm the lazy one, so to speak. It was my idea, I got those bozos to buy into it planned it all out worked the details and set things in motion. Yeah activity wise I wasn't too involved but that's because I'm not a nimble man and I don't like meeting new people. I don't trust anybody. For a good reason to as it happens, these fools were supposed to be my friends I've known them for a decade and now they're making fun of me. Something they don't want me to hear. My breathe quickens, I need to control it don't want to tip them off. I focus on my breath.

Eats like Kumbhakarna too. And he calls me the fat one, that lazy bum.

So explain to me again, how can we get more money out of this again, the idiot asks. Here's the idea, if there's three of us, it's 3.33 each right, so that's a lot of money but not too much. If he disappears, you know car accident, hiking accident suicide whatever, that means there's only two of us to share the loot, that's at about 5million for each of us. It's fifty percent more than we would have if he is in it. Think about all the holidays, you could take one every six months instead of every year! You could fly more, visit more countries, buy more goats. And we don't have to do much either!

Okay, so I understand if he gets in an accident it will be beneficial for us. But we can't ask him to get in an accident because he will die! Or get very ill. So we can't get that money, unless you can talk to him about that. It doesn't make any sense, this plan.

Idiot, listen to me okay, so I'm not saying we wait for an accident to happen. Life is long, accidents happen all the time it's inevitable all of us will encounter an accident sooner or later. All I'm saying is, it wouldn't be too much effort to hasten an accident and put him and the wrong place and the wrong time so he can enjoy the benefits but no gains, no lifeline back to safety! That fool will be gone, and the only other person who understands this fully and could rat us out will be out of way. It will be only you and me brother with our fifty-percent more money.

So you are saying we can kill him?!? How can you say that, he's our friend! And we don't have a gun or anything like that. The police were catch us so fast we won't even have time to get to the next town, because we are inexperienced enough to tell them apart!

Yeah eyah I know all of that okay, but I'm not proposing a murder, an obvious one. What I'm saying is accidents happen all the time to people what if he were to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and be a victim to other people's carelessness, people who would have no obvious reasons to be alive, unless they were intending on running a massive insurance scam in which case he'd win. Which was not the case because everybody in the town knew he was after all for the body. It's not a murder okay, only criminals do that and remember we are not criminals we are computer nerds who got lucky. And soon we'll be getting verrry lucky looking at the potsize it's a gamble worth making dude. He'll have played a game he's very unlucky in playing, that's all. There won't be any murders or nothin' like that...

Well, the woman for this our to consider as long as we can pay the money for the camera crew and her charges. She says she's worked with other directors before, but you can never be sure in this town.

Okay so what do we do with her, how can we use her in our plan?

That's the entire plan okay, get him involved with this girl who will then start defaulting autom's posts,

Dr. Harka's reluctance

 This is going to be long and tedious. I'm learning. Expect the worst.

Dr. Harka Karki didn't want to go to the funeral because he didn't know the man well enough, and what parts of the deceased he knew he didn't like. Pashupati was depressing, all the crying the smoke the loud shankha dirt dogs children

And the man wasn't a very nice man, spent time in thirty-two districts over the course of his career had mistresses in thirty-four, children with who knows how many and all he cared outside of womanizing with married women was making money getting drunk and abusing his position throughout the years to acquire all of those, throughout the years as his power and influence grew so did his hunger and his grossness the man made many enemies but none powerful enough to challenge him; anyone high enough and on his way he would bribe or threaten away.

That is how the man had seven large houses in prime locations in the valley, they said he had dozens in the west and the east, one for each informal wife they said....his wife the real one official one the long-suffering loyal hardworking mother of his children who he was absurdly suspicious of who took all the parental responsibilities off him so he could sleep and gamble around, she didn't know any of it all she was told was that she couldn't ask him questions about why he was late or where the money came in from or who the strange people showing up with briefcases in all hours were and what they wanted, he said if she could follow the rules she would get all the money she could spend not that she was very much of a spender but it did take the finance problem out of her concerns. She was not a stupid woman she had a general idea of what was happening she just didn't care as long as she was safe her children cared for and sent to good schools one day he would grow old he'd realize her devotion and commitment and spend all his time with her because old men are not horny they don't sleep around not men who've spent their vital energy in their youth anyway. Unfortunately for her that time never came even in the seventh decade of his life he was just as active in all manners of life, except for when it came to having conjugal relations with her when he went quiet and disinterested uncaring and cold. Anything but sex with her it seemed he wanted and she was fine by that eager actually she was afraid of him she didn't want to know what he was like in that sense they had had proper relationships seven times over the four decades three of which produced living breathing human beings, one which led to an early-pregnancy termination; he didn't want any more children and neither did she. She shivered at the thought of being touched by him down there, there was no charm in his breath in his words or his form. There weren't too many attractive men out there, maybe one of the attractive heroes from India but that was all, she didn't understand what it was those lusty when were after.

Dr Harka's wife was friends with her. That's how he was knew the man. They were quite good friends actually, as good as sisters, like nail and meat they say, celebrated all the festivals together. The wives had spent more time with each other by a large margin than with their husbands. The doctor's wife insisted he go to the funeral. She has been there for me, for us, in times of need, he's not a good man, everyone knows that but he was her husband he's not there and she needs support. He greed. She had been exceedingly supportive towards the Karkis, having her husband do them favors against his PA's wishes.

Oats brunch, long walk, potatoes and beans as heavy lunch, the show, early to bed [Mon 21]

 Slow workday, lots of meetings

Don't remember why I didn't go for the morning walk. I think I was too cold to get out of the bed and the cold was piercing through my blanket. I need to be warmer in the winter or all my plans will go to hell.

Had a heavy oats with PB, dried strawberry, dried cherries, milk nuts and bananas for breakfast. Turned into brunch because I couldn't eat for a long time.

After work went for an hour-and-half of walk, to the crossing, on to the other town and back in. So refreshing, those walks are the only thing giving me sanity right now, I need to do them in the mornings too, instead of waking up the last thing in the morning, absolutely before work. both the roommies go for morning walks it's only I who don't.

The roommates had made burger, potatoes and green veggie for dinner, I microwaved and roasted two potatoes in our toaster oven. Right as it was about to be done, I dumped in a bunch of our shredded cheese on top of the potatoes.

Separately i cut half a red onion, dumped a can of cleaned black beans, garlic, a lot of spices, feta and salt to make a beany...additive. Dumped it on the sides of the potatoes, and has potatoes and beans. Garlic were also put on with the tomatoes. I didn't imagine I'd be able to finish it all but I did make it through most of it which was a massive display of feat.

After dinner, and during it we watched several more episodes of Entourage, roommate BB and I are both hooked I've been doing a lot better than he has. Came to my house after 2.5 hours of the show, wrote a bit and went to bed at 12. Slept pretty soundly, didn't feel too cold or anything.

I'm the king among men, hear me roar

 Today I feel like a king among men, for I did something nobody could have seen me do. They aka me said I wouldn't do it, I was too lazy I was too clueless and a skillless hack but I did it. I did it finally and I'm a hero, to myself and all my fans out there. Again, that just mostly me.

I broke my phone a week ago. Well the phone broke itself slowly over the course of several years. Nokia 7.1's are known for having a lose connector and the connector eventually degrading till it doesn't work anymore. That's what happened to me. I asked for quote to get it fixed, figured I'd easy pay fourty-fifty, even eighty, they quoted me a hundred and sixty. it was mortifying.

So I do what every reasonably person does, took out the good ole' youtube and looked up the parts on amazon. First it came around 40-ish which I was happy about paying, plus 40 for the equipment which again I was fine because this was a new hobby I was getting into. Then roommate BB tells me he's got all the tools to get the task done. The few materials I did need the glue and glue-remover I decided to buy after I was confident in my skills. Didn't want to waste any money. Borrowed the heater from Su and Jo.

As it turned out I was careless and overconfident, and completely broke my screen in the effort. In my defence my screen was already pretty bad so it's not like it could have taken much stress anyway, but break it did. I gave up, I was a worthless hack, a cheapskate who hadn't tried fixing his phone and now I was stuck with a total piece of crap backup phone that made me want to destroy the phonekind, I didn't know any electronics. Roommate BB suggested I just replace the digitizer because that's often the only thing broken. I looked up, it was 30, making the entire venture a matter of less than fourty bucks, without the glue.

Come this afternoon I'm feeling bored and playing and eventually I get the usb circuit recharged. Got my screen-digitizer delivered and played around with it, and got it right on pretty much the first attempt. There was a lot of unscrewing and rescrewing and a lot of backing out of attempted steps, but eventually I got my phone working. It's charged, the wire connects perfectly, the deep cuts on my screen that had been bothering me for many months now are gone.

And the glue came in with the screen, so it's not like I need to buy anything new. This afternoon I used glue upon the backplate to stick it to the rest of the phone and it didn't work very well. Haven't attempted attaching the screen at all, just pushed it in with force and got all this in the burrito of the phone cover so nothing breaks. I need to glue my phone together tomorrow and the project will have completed. I need to award myself a couple of hundred of rewards to my future hobbies and interests. That's what I deserve.

If i can do this, I can do anything I can conquer the world.

Just adult thing: transferring your IRA from old company to a new one using paper methods

 It's a good news/annoying administrative news that will have to be dealt eventually situation.

The good news is I discovered some money that I was previously unaware about. It's in one of the retirement accounts my previous company set up for me. They never told me I had retirement money so I did nothing, and apparently the financial institution that held my money in the interim sent me a mail like the beginning of this year but it all looked like trash so I ignored it until now. I got rid of all the crap mail yesterday, figured it could be useful to make a hundred percent sure I wasn't missing something. And there was the mail, saying I had a couple of grand bones laying around in my retirement account!

I setup the transfer to my existing account, creating an extra IRA account on the way because apparently I only have 401k no rollover IRA. The website told me to mail them four hefty pages of documents with a printout of my driver's license which I never obtained. it's scary. But I'm working at it, and that feels like the most adult thing ever. Not the transfer itself, but the hassle I'm going through to make it right.

Falling upwards and above

Prompt:  The last thing you remember hearing before your friend thrust you out of the plane was: “Don’t forget your parachute!” That would be nice, though, instead of falling, you immediately begin hurtling upwards. With the stratosphere slowly approaching and your air running out, what do you do?
Prompt

Okay shit.

Now is the time to freak out. It's not wise to freak out during crisis situation, the cool one lives, panic literally kills. That's how it works in the water anyway. If you're drowning and disoriented, ignore all your instincts, ignore any other idea that pops up in your head. Let a breath or two out, the precious air out, and follow the bubbles. It could feel wrong, ridiculous even, absurd, just follow the bubbles. The bubbles know where they're going, and they'll take you to safety. You freak out and bash about and go where you 'think' the surface is, you're fucked.

In this particular case, I'm fucked anyway. I can't let go of the bubbles but it wouldn't matter either anyway. I drop a coin from my pocket. The instructor had warned me not to carry anything in the pockets -- a small pencil could become a deadly projectile at the right speed and angle, I put it in my zipped pocket anyway. Gift from a friend who wasn't around who wanted to see the space. He was gone but his lucky coin would. The coin dropped quickly to the ground...away from me, in the direction I wasn't hurtling towards. It'd make it to Earth, and the way things were going, I'd make it to the moon if I got lucky.

My breaths are getting longer and deeper. The air is getting thinner, it's not bright blue anymore, instead the dark emptines of space, black and forboding welcomes me. The color my skin is slowly turning into due to the absence of proper air. I've hypothesized about this, read science fiction enough times to know what will soon happen. I'll freeze to death. Or I'll boil to death. Or possibly explode. If I'm lucky, I'll pass out due to lack of air before any of that happens and not feel a thing. It's getting chillier though. Thank god for the thick jacket. A few dozen minutes I could do in the temperature if it didn't change much.

Couldn't be the gods, no way. I didn't piss the right ones enough. Can't be spies either, what's happening to me would be insanely incredibly expensive to accomplish with human engineering. It didn't make sense to use it on me instead of a cheap ball of lead. I wasn't worthy enugh. Not my enemies either.

Was it possible that I'm an incredibly, unreasonably intolerably unceasingly unlucky man? Who's being thrown up by an updraft of epic proportion? It's not beyond the realm of possibility. She seems to have some superpowers clearly since she's been super sketchy about it all the time. Something to hide most definitely. And here we have a quite strange phenomena. If it weren't this funny or ridiculous I'd be inviting the local workshop man and the mayor and getting himself a summer job and the repair yard. He wouldn't be collecting bottles to recycle, collecting a dozen bottles at a time. It wasn't about the money for him surely. Must have been about the principle.

I am not the villain -- an explanation

And they call me the villain here. Look at their hypocrisy.

I came from nothing, dirt I came from even beneath dirt, loam it was. They didn't care for me I was abandoned as soon as i came into this world. My kind wasn't accepted, a multicultured kind they said, so I fended for myself. Learned the tricks of the trade, went to top schools, got great marks, teachers' favourite and everything. Took interest in independent research I did, was involved in many a project with professors, and all by myself right from a young age.

And I wasn't a loner either. Your achievements are nothing if there's nobody to see it. I had a loyal group of friends who never left me. The others went straight for power or wealth or some sort of strange fascination with mysticism. I showed interest in people okay, tried understanding what it is that they wanted. And worked hard to get their needs met because their success meant my success. Yes there were a few who couldn't tolerate my success and greatness and looked at me with great suspicion but so what. They had nothing on my. My record was spotless, shiny.

I liked to travel in those times and so I did. Explored the world, learned from only the best, took their legacy and continued it on forever. I took over my family business and turned it into a whole different direction. And eventually people began to see my point of view. And sure, you can say I sold out at some point here. For those who hated me I adopted their principles. But a man's gotta survive okay, and I did what I had to. If you can't fight them, join them. Their principles weren't my principles, my circumstances actually would lead me the other way, but they won and I bowed. I was no half-hearted turncoat though, I fully embraced the principles of the very society that had derided and rejected me many years ago, and took them to the next level.

But of course every success comes at a cost. My detractors couldn't see how well I was doing and came up with conspiracies. Ways to defeat me, destroy me, take me down. But I wasn't going to be out so easy, and they didn't get anywhere. What did bring my downfall was my own carelessness, I let the power and success get into my head and didn't bother doing basic research. It backfired on me pretty badly. I was almost destroyed forever.

But I wasn't completely gone. I bid for my time. As I waited for things to cool down I traveled the world again, there would be a right time to make a come back. And there was, I struck. I failed, I struck again, and I failed again and again. But I wasn't going to let the universe defeat me. I organized a big comeback party and finally I was back in town. They didn't know it was me but there we were the movers and shakers in town.

Eventually they figured my existence, and those detractors again started their war on me. And I was powerful, so very powerful nothing could destroy me and my band of followers. Except this circumstantial prophesy and how the mistake I'd made many years ago would come back to bite me. It had never happened in the entire history of histories, and yet it did to me. I was gone, so were my enemies.

Listen, I'm not the one who created the fetish for pure-bloodedness, I'm half-blood myself, alright. I just went along with whatever everyone said even though that could have cost me my life. My research and passion for magic was boundless I pressed it to a point where nobody else had taken it. I'm Tom Marvolo Riddle aka Lord Voldemort and this is my story.

Friend calls, fruity lunch, home tour, Costco trip, tenoch, brokenest phone and hope, evening nap [Sun 20]

 Got up at 9, having slept at 1.30, rested in bed because it was so freaking cold outside. Didn't even know what time it was until PN called to catch up. Realized it was sunny outside by looking at their background and seeing the bright blue sky. They were having a picnic and I wasn't even out of my blanket. Nice conversation, they offered to get me some equipment for upcoming projects, we'll see how that evolves.

For lunch I finished the last of my remaining grapes, two bananas, lots of ginger syrup and some feta. So good at full. The syrup was surprisingly spicy. Watched Our Man in Japan with ND who was chilling with her after a hectic working weekend day. Friend VS said he'd visit, I was waiting for his call but he showed up at the door, apparently the downstairs door was open. Our first-floor neighbor has not been closing the door and I'm a little pissed about that.

Got caught up with VS, showed him the apartment gave him a tour of all the projects I have been working on. When he was about to leave PK said maybe we should go to costco so VS and I went, getting mostly toilet supplies, a hundred bucks worth of because that's what we need. The lines were incredibly long, they snaked around the other end of the store and back, but it being a Sunday evening one couldn't expect anything else.

I offered the Costco lunch to VS because I like the place and its food he said he'd take me up on the offer if it was any other place. We drove to Tenoch in Medford square, both of us got Tortas, the usual. He said he was over tex-mex, having lived in tex for the last decade and a half, I made fun of that said the we didn't have texmex here, only mexmex. Interestingly, he hadn't had tortas despite living in a state right next to Mexico for a really long time.

We got back, unloaded the stuff and we got him set with a nice big jar of kombucha. I needed the jar back, I said, didn't care for the kombucha definitely cared for the jar.

I rested for a bit, watched youtube and everything talked to folks a bunch. Decided to fix my phone in a bit. And unknowingly really screwed it up as I've explained in a previous post. Don't want to get into more with that since it's so painful. However roommate BB gave me hope, made me realize I'd only broken one another easily-replaceable thing in the phone, and I might as well fix that since it was broken anyway. So now I am replacing my phone's charging board as well as the screen/digitizer combo. If this works, and it has to because I'm going insane with the piece of shit phone that i bought five years ago and was already crap for its time and intend to crush it into tiny little pieces and throw the pieces into a volcano hopefully nuking the entire fucking mountain of it so all the individual molecules are spread wide apart, unable to bother anyone again. Anyway, there's hope, there's need there's desire. I have to do it, I am left with no other option.

So pissed at myself napped for a couple of hours in the evening. Talked to SK we made plans to write it never materialized. Got up at 9, watched tv, forced myself to write a little and tried going to sleep. Didn't actually sleep until a bit after midnight because my body had other plans but at least I got the evening nap.