When your friends won't listen to you and nothing seems to be working out

The three kinds of drunk people, by Kawanabe Kyosai.

The first one is the one that'll eat your ears nonstop (the middle one), no matter how not in the mood you are in for their bullshit. You'll get angry, be at your wit's end and they still have one goddamn clue on how you feel like.

And then there's your sad pathetic friend whose girlfriend just dumped her and you're trying to make her feel better but she's far to gone, so willing to compromise even when the loser partner cheated on her multiple times. What are you to but smolder, and make a face like a demon's, at this rate the idiot on your left might get a nice punching if he keeps at it with his antics.

You really shouldn't have made her drunk, that was a terrible idea, maybe a trip to the Six Flags would have been a better idea.

Ah well, too bad, at least there's sake left in the bottle, and all that fried catfish yum yum yum, little things that bring joy in life.

Today's a good day for a bar fight

 

Prompt: For today's prompt, imagine this: Your character is a new employee at the city's most exclusive, most secret club. They're asked to break up a fight between some patrons. However, they didn't imagine this when they heard "bar fight."

Source

Hey man, check out the back room, they're havin' a bar fight out there, the servers ain't gonna be able to stop it, rough crowd we're dealin' with buddy, the linecook tells me as I take a particularly long hit of the joint next to the dumpster.

Wait, is this for real? Why don't we throw these assholes out, or call the cops on them, I thought that bullshit was for the movies, we're not afraid of these losers, I say, tentatively. I'm new, don't know the crowd and don't know what the owners want me to do exactly. And I'm not the only bouncer in the establishment. Why did anyone ever let it come down to me?

Yeehh brother, finish your J man, they're dangerous I'm tellin' ya but it's gonna...they're dangerous folks you understand you don't want to mess with these people. They'll fuck you up good man, I knew this fella, from...Kentucky or whatever, the big fish in a little pond guy who came to town thinking everybody's a baby here, thought he could boss around the rough crowd here like he did in his hometown. That amigo, don't know -- don't know where he at now, but I tell ya hahahaha he-- he ain't gonna be all so cocky now, that's all I can tell. Even the cops are afraid of this crowd you know whatimsayin? You ever...find yourself near to those folks, you be walkin' on eggshells that's all Imma say.

So like, are these Mafia people? The mob? Connected to the cops? Politicians? Or like big burly wrestlers who can fuck you up? Don't the bosses of the bar know how to deal with these sorts, havin' been in the business all these years they must have contacts

Yee yee no brother the problem you see is they got money, yeah, they got all the money you want, big money shut the fuck up money. An'.. an'' they like our dump yea, for parties and shi' always comin' to us, like the seafood or some crap maybe salmon I ain't never payin' attention to all of it. Sometimes they here with their families too, so it's not not easy as sayin' you gonna send 'em away 'cos this is where our big money come in from, all the catering deals. Normal people they pay what eight dollas, ten dollas for their burger, for 'em we add some bullshit into their mayo or whatever and now they're happily payin' twice that. And booze be flowin' like water you hear so we make more wi'em in a night than in two good weeks otherwise. It's just they're...they...fightin' people, wid each other, and it's rough yanno. People get hurt.

Who are these people exactly?

They're the bigwigs, city's bar association, man.

Don't ask too many questions, they said

Is it a bad word?
Is it about sex?
Is it Barack Obama?
Is it a person?
Is it a thing?
Is it a game?
Is it new?
Is it old?
Is it history?
Is it fun?
Is it horseriding?
Is it expensive?
Is it common?
Is it small?
Is it colorful?
Is it a physical object?
Is it in this room?
Is it in this town?
Is there only one copy of it?
Can I touch it?
Is it a part of some...game?
Is it a dice?
Is it a card?
Is it a piece from a game?
Is it a chess piece?
Is it an animal piece?
Is it the knight from Chess?
Hurray!

Lovesong of Cinderella's coachmen

Kiss me now
Before it's over
Hold me tight
Until I fly
Caress my hair
Lay your heart bare
Hold my hand
Boop my nose
And kiss me now
Before we're over
And I Dis-appear
Into the two rats
That I am
Take me in
Still while
The enchantment
Is working
The mother fairy
Ain't coming again, honey
This is our moment,
It's our time
To live like people
Like a human being.

30 things

 (These are wonderful stream-of-consciousness tools I've discovered even though I started writing lists such as that below to blow the post count and cheat on the line-count. Perhaps this should be a regular weekly feature, haaaah).

1. Cheese on pizza
   
   
2. Burnt smell
   
   
3. That vague sense of citrusy smell/feeling you get, in the randomest of things
   
   
4. Young adult novels
   
   
5. Billie Eilish
   
   
6. That time you shit your pants
   
   
7. Exhaustion
   
   
8. Some old-timey wizard from harry potter who they're going to make a series after
   
   
9. sunflowers and wheat
   
   
10. goddamn cowfeed of all things
    
    
11. rubberstamping
    
    
12. running faster than everybody around you
    
    
13. the moon
    
    
14. when they tell you can't do something but you do it anyway and they don't care
    
    
15. needless listmaking
    
    
16. dogs that should naturally swim but will drown because IRL they can't, literally they can't
    
    
17. allergies, fake or real
    
    
18. Series of acknowledging grunts
    
    
19. tofu burger
    
    
20. women's soccer
    
    
21. cats that act like dogs (this might be a repeat)
    
    
22. the secret lives of elephants
    
    
23. google auto suggest that stupidly thinks I'm typing in hindi and makes me speak hindi
    
    
24. expensive spices
    
    
25. new car
    
    
26. new chocolate
    
    
27. content
    
    
28. pool
    
    
29. oodles of noodles
    
    
30. elections, not erections
    

House cleaning, aka one of those meta-posts

The complaints have gotten more frequent it's time for change. Maintaining a constant pace has been great for the last two/three years but I've forgotten the spirit of why I started writing here and been going by the letter. I maintain good averages, but those posts come in droughts and floods.

That will change from hereon. Which means I'll have to write from my cellphone. The posts might get shorter, even more so than they are right now, and the quality will definitely see a downward shift as if it was even possible. But the important thing will be I'll maintain proper discipline and writing hygiene and not be writing for the sake of it.

Also if I'm still doing four posts a day, one will be journal post per usual, one will be prompted fiction, one will be unprompted but prompted-genre fiction(likely) and the final will be 'non-fiction' observation piece. At least. The important part of all of this though is that they'll be written every day, and timeboxed so I don't get bored or too rushed. Timeboxing and writing the same day are important, and I'm returning to that.

Grocery trip, gift galore, lotsa writing, bruschetta and baguette brunch, Volunteer park and lakeview cemetary walk, Barboza, unexpected fun, Qlub failure, sound sleep [Thu 31]

 Dunno what I did during the workday what do we even care, I write this the day after, having freaking finally 'caught up' what an insane BS concept I'm not okay with how things are going now and intend and promise to change the status quo.

After work I wrote a bunch bunch bunch and got super hungry, decided maybe I should go to little big burger, ended up at TJ's instead, just the basic supplies of cheese milk butter eggs fruits tempeh bruschetta and baguette etc, quickly unpacked, and had bruschetta and baguette for brunch. Also potato chips, lots of potato chips I'm ashamed to admit, I go there when I'm hungry and I can't help myself. Oh and salt-and-caramel dark chocolate, yum yum.

Headed out to volunteer park and lakeview cemetary for walk with Ar(y), she really likes to read up the tombstones etc, it was a very pleasant walk, we sat on the bench by the lakeview park and looked at the lakes and the Eastside. Walked back, did a couple of rounds in Cal Anderson park, wrote a bunch more. Was ready to go to the gym when the boys invited to Barboza, I was very late and got there 30 minutes late and still was kinda the first person to get there. Guys got dinner from bokbok I wasn't hungry, Sk got us beers, G showed up, and Sb was there too. The band we were there for wasn't playing until 10.15.

Later in the evening we headed down highly skeptical about the music of the band but they were actually really poppy and fun to dance to, everybody had a good time. We discovered that we were perhaps their only 'random' fans, everybody else seemed to be either friends or family. Funtimes. Hung there a bit, Sk wanted to go somewhere else so we tried Q where we saw so many cuties really well dressed and go super excited about what was inside, waited in the line for 30 minutes, until we found out the tickets were fourty bucks. For a DJ duo we'd never heard before. Cancelled the whole situation, walked back to Sk's fun room where the boys played pool. I snuck out, came home and slept, such a sound sleep. Didn't even remember what happened last night when I woke up despite having barely drunk.

Project updates, round like, 7th or whatever

 So yeah lets do a quick roundup of all the projects I'm working on and will look into in the foreseeable future.

I got a block of shiitake mushrooms, hadn't intended on growing them out right away but they had other plans and started popping small fruits out right away, so the block now sits on a dish on my kitchen counter, covered by bubble wraps and I'm watering it twice daily.

The other kind of mushrooms, the fun ones, I haven't looked at since early last year. The weather's getting better and my weather control technologies are getting better too, very soon when I have some spare time that's what I will be looking at.

Kombucha goes suspiciously slowly, the pellicle hasn't come up in any of the three separate samples I've been working on. The good news is the flavor is there, and I think I know where I messed things up (too strong tea, not the right kind of sugar, step feeding, not enough oxygen), so any 1-hour block is enough for me to get back on the train. I'm not worried about that.

Milk kefir has worked swimmingly well, even the milk separations have gone down, the final products have been widely appreciated, that's as good as I can get, should start looking into flavorings, fixins and carbonating soon enough. Lots of activities there.

Water kefir situation is a bit more mixed. Not enough carbonation, but the sugar has definitely turned sour. I've tried the first few batches and didn't 'get it'. The wrong kind of sugar (I was using powdered) may have been leading me astray, so two days from now I'll know exactly where I lie. Also started the first batch of carbonated fruit juice water kefir so that's something to look forward to.

Rice wine has progressed the furthest it has ever, got the right kind of rice, figured out steaming situation, and have the enzyme, yeasts, and the jars. The only wait is to get in the right 'mindset' hahah. Maybe this weekend, or the upcoming week, we'll see.

I bought a small block of tempeh from TJ's to use as a starter. I'm afraid it's been pasteurised and won't be able to complete the job I assign it, but since I don't intend on a big bean round, it won't be a massive loss. Maybe better ones from the Indonesian store will make the progress easier. Regardless, I need to get beans for that. Maybe I'll use the nasty canned beans I got.

Natto, thinking of buying natto from a japanese store and using that as a starter.

My kimchi gallon jar is finishing soon, looking into making some myself. As well as fermented veggies (sauerkraut or what have you) because why not.

Really want to do Kanji but there's always competing instructions online, dunno if it'll be worth it.

For flavorings, the dried orange peels might be good. Thinking of getting myself some chinese roses or dried gurans to flavor my drinks and projects, that should be going well. Of course, actual fruit juices and frozen fruits are always an option.

Millet wine (Tongba) is on the scope too, if anybody will buy me millet grains. And the containers related, that seems like a lot of investment, tbqh. Dunno if I'm ready yet.

Got my eyes on beet kvass too, been seeing some solid beets at the farmer's market, gotta get on that train sooner than later, I'm thinking, with so many empty jars.

I have exactly zero excuses to not go hog-in with all my ambitious home projects now

So PN gifted me freaking 4 gallon jars, of the highest quality, and half a dozen small serving bottles for kombucha, of the bougiest variety. Which means I have no excuses left to not go all-in on all the fermentation projects, with kombucha and all sorts of kefirs, fermented veggies, kimchi, rice wine and maybe even millet wine now. Good times.

Add the two gallon jars I bought at Daiso, and the lack of receptacles is no longer an excuse, rather the daily sight of them above my fridge will serve as a reminder that I need to get my shit on, yo. Will go aggressively with rice wines in the foreseeable future, will see what other options there are.

Chocolate review: TJ's 70 dark with caramel and sea salt is da bomb

 It's expensive, the Trader Joe's Dark Chocolate 70 with Sea salt and Caramel, for the small size it is, compared to their more basic options like the 'pound' chocolate for less than 5 bucks. But it's worth it, it's dark but not scarringly bitter on the tongue like some are, it's salty but not in a dehydrating way, and the caramel does add so much texture in the inside it feels like you're eating a much more premium honey-based product.

Highly recommended, but only if you are okay with finishing a bar of chocolate in a sitting or two. It's that good. Without that, I suggest you go for their 'bare' 90% dark chocolate, you can very much hold it after the second or third or fourth bite, that one.

The (accidental?) yum yum yummiest Cheetos(!) Mac N Cheese

 So last night at the wee hours of the night I was suddenly besotten by this strange pang of unyielding hunger that wouldn't go away no matter how many cups of herbal tea I drank. I was unable to think or function properly, had to find something to eat immediately, no matter what.

As it had been eons since I had gone to the grocery store I had to scrounge in the pantry for something long lost or forgotten that nobody had gotten around to eating. And that is when the Cheetos Red Hot Mac N Cheese was discovered. It was a part of the first grocery trip I did when moving places last year, many many years ago, had had been hidden in the nooks and crannies always escaping my hungry ways. And it was time.

So I followed the instructions, bright red cheese powder and all. But instead of milk I used kefir. And added an extra clove or two of garlic (instead of...none). Plus crumbled home-made cheese to give it extra cheesiness.

It was one of the best things I've ever eaten, would legitimately put in 12 bucks as the price and people should be ready to label it as their best, or just abandon it, that's how good it was. I asked KP if they liked the thing and they said it was alright, but that's just propaganda so they're none-the-wiser, the people she meant. Not cheesy enough they said. I said it was quite sour and cheesy thanks to the crumbled cheese so many they should done it with an open mind, and then in the end we laughing about it all. It was an incredibly rewarding experience.

Mac n Cheese
Cheetos flamin' hot powder
Water to boil
two cloves of garlic, smashed and shopped
some sour crumbled cheese
Kefir as a replacement for milk

And the kefir is just a better product, great replacement for water. It worked out perfectly!

I live in such a city, even the songbirds sing firetruck songs

 So this is the last day of the month and I still have like ten posts to go which means obviously I'm in a rush haha what a surprise am I right? On paper it should be easy, there's an hour left and 12 posts in a hour is not a big deal for me but remember I'm on the east coast time, which means it's only 8 out here West and I need to go for social things, by the time I come back it'll be far too late to get completed. Leading to me having to backdate 10 posts or more by a day. Done so so much worse but this was my opportunity to do better. Haven't lost the war completely but these unfortunate circumstances arise more than I hoped they'd.

City things, busy lives, clubbing, indie band shows, so much fun, right, you'd think.

Often, it is.

But the noise, dear gods the cacophony is intolerable, the sirens blaring all the freaking time day or night how anyone manages to retain sanity after living years with this I don't understand.

I was at the park earlier and I heard the strangest of sounds. It was a songbird singing, pleasant enough. But the sounds it was making sounded a little off. Not your traditional cuckoo song. Gave it a moment's thought and then I realized what it was. Songbirds will 'sing' whatever sounds they here, what's common in their surroundings. And because I live in the neighborhood that I do, the most common, most loud noise is that of the firetruck. So the songbird was making firetruck sounds, incessantly. Like nonstop. On and on and on, until I had to physically escape the park because I couldn't handle it anymore.

SO that's what my life has come to.

Long chill walks are just so great

 I've been going out for long walks for a while now, since Boston actually, ever since the Pandemic became a thing (TM) but most eagerly since sometime late 2020. In Seattle they've been a lot regular, 10, 20, even 30k steps a day aren't unusual for me. It's easier because the weather's a lot more pleasant when it's good. Because the weather's not always good, good weather is way more appreciated, so I definitely make myself go out on a walk every time the sun's out.

And it's even more fun when you're walking in the parks, on the streets, overlooking the lakes, mountains and the sea with people you care about, teasing, eating food or whatever, slightly shivering because that's how Seattle be, in the silence. Silence is the best interviewer, the answers that emerge to break it cannot be generated by even the best journalist questions.

It's a great way to be at terms with nature, with friends and acquaintances, with your town and city, and ultimately yourself. What a pleasant approach to appreciate your being and the wonderful life you've been given, aaa.

Never has there been a terrible walk, never has my mood been awful after a good walk. Good things happen to people who go on good long walks.

Controversial opinion: 3/4 days of going out is fine, whatever

 SO yeah this is Thursday evening and we're going out of course but not because we are party animals but because there's a low key local Indie band playing at a club near us at 8 and we need to support local music and musicians and this is all so fun so why not? Which means probably we're not going to be hanging on for too long, start at eight, end at eleven, start at ten, end at four that's the rule we go by generally. As a consequence, tomorrow is going to be busy, and Saturday too one way or the other. And folks are not happy with just the evenings, so Sunday will have Activities (TM) as well, dinner at somebody's place, possibly mine, that's how it rolls.

Which is fine, honestly, I'm getting to hang out with fun outgoing young people, living in the heart of a thriving city with an amazing music scene, so what if I pay for it with my sleep and energy level and as of more recent my workout schedules? If I had more discipline, I'd get done with them way earlier, not wait until the last moment to go and then somehow always somebody invites me and the gym plan cancels. But yeah anyway in the past I've complained about all the many days and ways of going out over the week, but this one seems a lot more chill and manageable. This situation I can work with, it's fine, whatever.

Congrats Lord Bezos you played me, aka amazon shopping bonanza

 SO I had to buy a couple of things three weeks ago and Lord Bezos of Amazon offered me a month of free Amazon Prime, which would otherwise have cost me 15 bucks. I happily took it. And since then I've done at least five hundred bucks worth of online shopping on his site, things I would have bought anyway but probably elsewhere and probably much later but to maximize everything i rushed buying it right away. Which means every week I get shipped several large cardboard boxes. It feels slightly embarrassing, feels like I'm a shopoholic, which I probably am by definition at this point. And the carton boxes are not easy to disassemble either which is why there's a massive pile of empty boxes next to my living room. They'll get disposed eventually, but I'm just shocked how much I've spent in the last month on online shopping, getting things mostly nobody never needs, and I didn't think specially I'd get but here we are, enriching Lord Bezos for the convenience....

My effing phone screen is effed, yet effing again

 I was running out of the apartment this evening, my phone in the jacket pocket sitting a bit too precariously but it had been fine in the past so I didn't care much. Got out of the stairwell and suddenly it fell down, face first. And now it has a bazillion little cracks running up and down, the sort where you're afraid to use your phone because you might hurt your fingers. Or your friends might see your screen and think you're a cheap fucking bastard, the sort that doesn't fix their phone screen though they can certainly afford to do so. It's terrible really, so unfortunate, wish things hadn't turned out like that, but here we are. I'm three months away from the release of the phone I'm waiting eagerly for, the Pixel 6a so I most definitely won't get a new new phone. And it's unclear if this phone will make it until then. Briefly considered repairing this phone by myself, but then remembered the sorry situation of the last time when I did that. Maybe I'll take it to the repair place. A hundred and ten buckaroos apparently, which is a lot but if it means I can wait it out until May, why not. Or maybe I can find a decent cheap phone for that price? Hmmm, gotta look around.

Oats and kimchi lunch, I decide to get shit together, laundry and cleanup, I write fucktons, I will straighten up that's the only way to go, latenight hang at A's, earlymorning Cheetos Mac N cheese [Wed 30]

 I write this on the evening of the 30th, it's 2.40AM est of the next day and I've decided I've been out of good practice for far far too long and this is the time to work and put in the sweat equity. Let's begin.

Got up in the living room since the night before I'd slept outside my bedroom, just to change things up. Work was regular, whatever. For lunch I had oats kimchi butter and soy sauce. After work I did three rounds of laundry after setting up that stupid app to pay for laundry. Folded all the clothes right away. Cleaned my room, vacuumed everything up while the clothes got cleaned.

After that, I started writing, like a lot. A lot lot lot. Because not only will I be back on track by the end of this month, gonna write only either that day or not write at all because the point is to form good habit, not to barf up words.

So wrote for hours and hours and hours.

Went to A's place for like an hour and half, chilled with the boys played with M the doggo. Got back, more writing except my pace took a hit cos I started taking it easy, after realizing I had one more day.

At 2.30 EST am I realized maybe I should finally eat the cheetos mac n cheese from last year so I've got that going while I write this. Will add my special cheese and kefir to it, gonna be good. I'll go to bed in 30 minutes, and then write the rest tomorrow.

Chipotle lunch with AS(m) who's back, walk to Volunteer park and back, hang at A(e)'s, I promise to but don't write, living room bedtime [Tue 29]

 Got off of work earlier than usual, ordered online at Chipotle and wen to pick. Met up and got got up with AS(m) who is making a surprise visit from Minneapolis.

In the afternoon took a nice long 3-hour nap, and then headed out to Volunteer park with Ar(y). Got 12k steps in, couple of rounds at Cal Anderson park and then hung out at A(e)'s place for half hour. Got back early to write, but didn't. Processed kefir and drank tea, had the leftover Chipotle for dinner.

Watched tv etc until 2am EST, setup my sleeping things in living room and went to bed listening to Off Menu podcast.

Almost gift, cheap subway linner, I nap and fuck up my sleep schedule [Mon 28]

 In the morning Rmk asked me for birthday gift, that I got but turns out that's not what she wanted, had to cancel it at the very last moment.

Work was more productive than has been recently, I was still working from bed because it was so cold and I'm a lazy mofo.

Had the usual rice and dal lunch but it wasn't enough so I ordered a subway for cheap, talked to ED for half hour, went and picked it up. So. Very. Satisfying. Should have gone with the whole footlong, Subway rarely disappoints me.

Napped in the afternoon because of all the fuckery I'd been having with energy levels and sleep. For like 3 hours. Which meant I couldn't go to sleep till 5am EST. Or was it 5.30. Which was 3 hours before my first meeting would start. Man I've seen this movie, and do NOT like how it ends.

Wakeup at belltown, relax and cleanup at home, farmer's market mushroom block and rice-beans, walk at arboretum, exhausted, cancelled dinner plans [Sun 27]

 Got up very tired and lacking in energy at Belltown. Tried to escape but people wouldn't let me, so I got all ready and snuck out. Walked at 7am it was so pleasant outside, I should do that more often.

At my place cleaned the kitchen, worked with kefir and chilled listening to music, finally by myself after what felt like years. Looked out of the window, watered the plants, and felt the pace of my pulse. One with the world.

And the As called me. The gang was coming over. They brought oranges at least. Had several rounds of teas with them. We planned on going to the farmer's market and then the arboretum. Aks(e) and Ar(y) went somewhere else, they were supposed to catch up with the rest of us, but due to a miscommunication we lost our parties. Ar(e) and I walked around the market, she brought blue oyster mushrooms and got seafood chowder, I got rice and beans because they ran out of pupusas.

After some minor conflict between parties, and one pickup and dropoff later, we drove to arboretum. Where it took us half an hour at least to find a parking spot. We found one just as we'd given up and decided to walk around Volunteer park instead.

It was a pleasant 1.5 hour walk, after which I was dropped home, we cancelled the dinner plans made because I was so very tired and Aks had abandoned us.

I ate oranges and kefir for dinner and that was it. By myself finally!

Back from latenight at Olympia, colorful brown fried rice and kimchi, dance party at Timbre room, afterparty at belltown, I sleep early so tired [Sat 26]

Got back from Olympia ("california") at 9am ish, slept for most of the day, had brown rice fried with kimchi and veggies for brunch. Recovered most of the day, and cleaned my apartment, the party from the night before had been pretty messy.

In the evening I put on nice clothes, went to Timbre room where our friend Bd was DJ'ing. It was only me at first and I got myself one drink, the sole one for me in the night. Eventually the rest of the gang filtered in, and very soon it was poppin'. Sk really wanted to dance it was obvious, and of course I enjoy dancing without caring for a thing in the world too. It was quite something. There was a rando who may have been making fun of me to others for dancing by my will but he didn't come talk to me. It was the strongest urge I'd felt in a while to punch somebody.

From there was driven to Belltown to A's place right away, at 12.30. Apparently Sk was dancing until 2.30. There I jumped into the mattress got myself a nice warm blanket and slept. Ar(y) stole the nice blanket from me and gave me their shittier blanket. Sleep didn't come easy, regardless sleep I did.

Potato latkes, fried rice dal and kimchi lunch, my living room is finally complete with new mattress and lights, couchmaking and Domino's, failure, Comet tavern, 4am afterparty, ride to california, ride back at 10am [Fri 25]

 Because I was so tired of all the rice and dal and kimchi situation, I decided to do something fun and creative for snacks. Which was potato 'fries', kinda' like latkes. They came out...alright. They were oversalted, plus a bit overcooked, and they went out so fast. Two goddamn large potatoes, disappeared just like that what a what. Obviously though that wasn't enough so then I fixed myself rice dal and kimchi, as usual.

In the evening I setup the mattress the cushions and the new fairy lights, it looked so goddamn fly, sent the photos to everybody. Really now I'm the owner of one of the homeliest places I know, so gd proud too!

In the evening I walked over to Belltown to the girls' place, to setup their couch like I promised the day before. It took me some time to figure out that the arrangement A wanted wasn't really possible. Then AS(e) showed up and helped the whole thing. We spent 45 mins figuring out possible arrangements, then another 45 minutes verifying that it was not as modular as they claimed it was. Ultimately it took us like three hours. And another hour of wait before the pizza was there. Pizza was damn fine.

AR(e) drove us to Comet where we chilled but there were far far too many people to have conversations etc. We tried going into some club Sk really wanted to go because he felt like dancing, but they were empty. So the boys bought beer from the gas station, and we came over to my place. Six/seven of us. 18 beers.

Conversations happened until 4am when a few of us decided to go to California, yet again, for the third time in as many weeks. I dared PK that he'd absolutely have to take us it was on his pride, and he promised he'd. We were all very drunk. I packed my daypack with towel and change of clothes, plus brush and paste and two cans of beer.

I don't remember the drive to Olympia because I was asleep most of the way there. At Olympia as PK charged is EV, Ar and I bought chips and water for our 7(!) hour trip to Cali. Back in the car, I fell asleep right away and the next thing I know it's 8.30 am and PK is dropping me home. I think I'm done with trying to make plans to go to California by car.

Connection lost, teeny tiny burgers at Little Big Burger, volunteer park walk, beer run, dinner at Belltown [Thu 24]

 Got into a serious conversation -- not a fight -- with somebody I'd been talking to from the evening before, and they felt our mutual interests were misaligned and there was not much value in keeping alive the friendship there was, which was a big fat bummer but like whatever, better now than later.

So hungry, didn't have the energy to make anything, so went to Little Big Burger and got the fake beef burger. Forgot how tiny they were. Talked to mom about various issues including things discoverd from the night before.

Went on a walk to Volunteer park, went to my place, collected kefir bottles and waited for the A boys to show up. Drove to QFC for beer and snacks where we got Ss as well and drove to Belltown to the girls' place.

So much teasing and good food there. The kefir sold out right away. Went to their 'park' at the floor above to smoke. I committed to helping them get their couch setup the next day.

Returned home not too late, A(y) had to drive so goddamn much to drop the three of us in the same neighborhood but in separate streets.

I setup the cushions, chacha hangout with SS and all the rest of the gang, latenight superduper after party at mine, inebriated texts [Wed 23]

 Setup the cushions finally, put in the two pillows in the cover and made them look so fancy, took photos and sent them to everybody. I could legit do this as a business, buy them for a total of less than 20 buck, sell them for 60 each. Imagine walmart knows that too which is why they'll limit me into buying 12 pillows at a time.

In the evening I went to Chachas, waited for the rest of the gang to arrive. Went downstairs, the music was far too loud, there was live metal music of some sort. We spent time mostly outside in the open talking, teasing, catching up. Didn't drink much, the drink we got was real watery and crappy too. Hung out with I, Bp, T, etc. SS was there obviously, and so was A(e). Sk didn't show up because he thought Ss would be around for a while, didn't know about the change of plans vis-a-vis miscommunication about Vegas bachelor's party.

The group moved to my place and we had lots of intense conversations until very very late at night, for a weekday. I was so full of energy and pumped up, as if I'd had had ten cups of coffee.

After everybody left at 2.30ish, I couldn't sleep so called up people/texted them and was in touch with people until very very early next morning. May not have gotten any sleep. Maybe an hour or two, at most.

Leftover rice dal and veggies lunch, the cushions (tm) arrive, walk and hang with BC, bubble tea, gymming, pool and shuffleboard [Tue 22]

 For lunch I had the leftover brown rice, dal and potato curry from the weekend. It was...getting to be a bit too much, but ahh that's what adulthood is like.

My cushions arrived finally though they came in such large boxes it was too overwhelming for me to get them in order right away.

In the evening walked over to BC's place, hung out with Ruby the doggo, chatted for a couple of hours. Walked back to capHill searching for a good bubble tea place, tried three or four different places all of them had closed by 8, BC was really frustrated by that. Ended up at Drip where we waited in the line for 30 minutes and then another 30 minutes for the order to complete. The tea was far far too sweet I'd rather have gone without it.

Went to SB's place, did the gymming, kinda cheated but not really. We played shuffleboard and pool, we're both getting better at pool, finally something to look forward to.

Friedrice and kimchi lunch, teapot set finally, hang with SS at SK's place [Mon 21]

 For lunch I had friedrice and kimchi.

After work chilled for a while, drinking from my new teapot set with cute little cups.

In the evening AKS and I went to SK's place to hang out with SS who came in from LA. Funnily enough, he's been roommates with a lot of people I know, that's actually the story for two days later but whatever. We got high, talked talked and talked more, and then had dinner which SK cooked. It was pretty good, we had a good time, made plans to hang out on Wednesday and thursday.

Cleanup after the party storm, fried rice and eggs lunch, I love my new Uniqlo jacket [Sun 20]

 Used this Sunday to clean up my place from the evening/morning before, the gang left at 8am ish in the morning.

For brunch I had fried rice and eggs, as has been standard for a while now.

Wore my uniqlo jacket in house I look swanky in it, it's cool, and sent the pics to so many people. Did something else that was exciting happen? Possibly. Did I record it in any way? No, not in my google map logs, or personal blog, or images, so even if anything cool happened I have no recollection. Shoulda' gone to farmer's market but I'm guessing I was too busy cleaning up and cooking for that. Also lotsa bob's burger's likely happened.

Celebrations, connections with people far away, cherry blossom festival, malltrip to southcenter, hang at mine, latenight booze run, early morning dinner, the gang crashes at my place [Sat 19]

 SO yeah we were chilling at talking and hanging out until wee hours of the morning. After which I talked to people in Nepal and things went really well. I bring this up specially as an omen of how they turn out in a couple of days from hereon.

Went to the cherry blossom festival with the girls, invited A(y) there, who we picked up and then went to SouthCenter. Lots of photos at the UDistrict blossom festival, the extended gang was there too but not much interaction happened. Lotts of hijinks searching for and using porta-potty.

At SouthCenter I bought nice things at Daiso, the filipino grocery there, and at Uniqlo. Great jacket at Uniqlo the fluffy kind, man what a great purchase, it was at sale too. And some super comfy undies. You can never have enough good undies.

We wanted to go to California yet again, but figured maybe we should pack belonging when we're at mine first. And very soon the cali plan got shelved. Invited A(e), and Ar(y) and I went on a booze run. The rest of the gang drank and smoked, and I cooked them dal bhat and alu-anda ko tarkari at 2.30 in the morning, like I promised them to. Except I was out of white rice, and the brown rice took the longest to cook, so stupid.

Nobody wanted to leave, so they slept at my place until 7 in the morning. I know, fuuuun!

Yummy leftover fried rice lunch, rest at home after 25k steps day, who the heck is this person, surprise celebrations and gifts thanks people, A is invited all of a sudden, fun latenight [Fri 18]

 I say 'yummy' lunch but it's what I've been eating for many many days, perhaps the photo for this day looked better which is why I use the adjective?

Didn't walk out during the day because my body was not yet ready after the 25k step from the day before.
Got sent photos and 'profile' of some lady to check out, and my policy on that has always been and will be, not into that.

Had plans to go out, nothing seemed to be happening, so I put on some music and had kava and fun generally. The girls showed up at midnight, we chilled and drank and fooled around until 2 when they decided to reveal the 'surprise', a cake and a nice flowerpot with flower. It was really sweet. I'm thankful to everyone. We invited A and he showed up soon. The four of us were up and about until four in the morning, it was really an amazing night. Our group was finally taking form explicitly, defining clear set of members.

Leftover fried rice with frozen veggies with kefir, walk to Madrona beach, eggplant & Tofu dinner for Sb and co., Tofu dessert [Thu 17]

 As I write one journal post after another I've realized my meals are quite predictable and boring. I'm unsure on whether that's a good thing or bad, just another pattern that I've cleaned from my journal posts.

For lunch I made fried rice with the brown rice and frozen veggies I had, and added kefir to the whole thing for extra prebiotics.

After work I walked to Madrona beach, to the end of the street I live in. It was so cold and windy but I got to experience that part of the town finally, I have walked east, and I have walked west! Took a bunch of photos, listened to Spilled Milk podcast on the way back. There's a lot of ups and downs there, way more than I expected so I was very tired when I got home. Which meant I cancelled on the gym plans for the day.

Either way, I made my special eggplant dish that took an hour and half to make, and mapo tofu using the mix from hau hau market I'd bought many months ago. The eggplant dish tasted exactly like titaura ko tarkari, no judgment, Sb and his friend liked it, and the mapotofu was too watery but fortunately my two guests didn't know any better so they quite enjoyed it!

They'd brought a tofu mango dessert with them, we ended the meal on that. Not a big fan of tofu desserts, it turns out.

Eggs,dal,rice,kimchi,seaweed lunch, walk to Volunteer park and back, my facial set is complete! [Wed 16]

 For lunch I had egg dal rice kimchi and seaweed.

In the evening walked to volunteer park to get my 10k steps as I listened to podcasts, had to walk all the way beyond my place on the way back to get to the target.

Received a few packages from Amazon and my facial cleanser/moisturizer set by Cerave was complete! Which would mean I'd talk about it nonstop to anybody willing to listen for the two weeks that followed.

I shave, Bombay burger dinner with Sb and friend, burger fries cakes and oh so much more!, framboise at TJ's too, celebrations [Tue 15]

So I shaved, because people told me to, and those people happened to be of the...female...persuasion, etcetera. Whatever. Also I was excited about everything else happening.

Talked to friends all day long, busy busy times it was. I was missing calls because I was on calls with other people.

Didn't go to the gym because Sb's was otherwise occupied.

In the evening Sb, me and his fried went to Bombay burger and ordered burger and fries and cakes. Went to TJ's and got the frambroise. The person there greeted me because she saw the date on my ID, and that's how the gang knew it was mah day.

Came back home and had an absolute feast of Bombay burger. Plus tea, plus kava, plus kefir. Yum yum yum, great people great conversations!

Potatoes, eggs and bread for lunch, saving the crappy soyscream with PeanutButter [Mon 14]

 So for brunch I decided to change things up and add Trader Joe's tater tots to the mix and had tator-egg-kimchi sandwich for lunch. Filling and tasty, so much texture happening, not sure about the nutritional value though.

Eagle-eyed readers of the blog will notice that not much seems to happen to me on Mondays, and this Monday was no different, didn't go out a lot, just around the house.

In the evening I wanted to try the nastiest soy ice-cream everybody had made fun of me for the previous weekend, juzzed it up with peanut butter, honey and almond bits, and it was most definitely better than just the ice-cream. It was my dinner, yes, I'm an adult man and sometimes I'll eat ice-cream for dinner. Or spoonfulls of peanutbutter if I'm feeling extra lazy. Whaddyagonnadoboutit?

More camping fun, cooking, cleaning, beachgoing, rivercrossing, random park-going, back to civilization [Sun 13]

 Got up, walked around, walked the doggo around, took a bunch of pics and played in the river. Rivulet, is it?

A and I made breakfast and did most of the cleaning. We packed up after the meals, and headed away from the most incredible weekend, I was in the moment at every point, it was heavely!

We went to this nice beach nearby, possibly from the evening before, crossed this river which was quite deep on foot and sat down chilling drinking smoking. For a few hours. Talking. Taking scenic photos and selfies. Snacks too. Satisfied after a while, the two groups separated and drove back.

On the way back, we stopped by this random scenic vista, bought snacks at this gas station. We turned back several miles to see the vista, a real peaceful park overlooking a river and a pond, so peaceful. And it was just the three of us and M the dog.

Got home pretty decently late, don't remember doing anything else but chilling and sleeping.

Up in the morning, getting shit together, drive to Belldown, and then to Woodridge, yummy tacobell at Aberdeen, Tree of Life in West WA, THE PACIFIC, Camping fun[Sat 12]

 Got up early in the morning, showered packed, went to A's place to get some supplies for the camping trip. Too many things, waited forever for S to drive over, he had legitimate excuse though, since he was planning everything.

We drove over to Belltown, picked up the girls, and drove south to Woodridge where we caught up with the rest of the gang. Moved around bags and stuff, made sure everybody was comfortable, and agreed to meet straight at the campground.

Drove a fun fun drive, stopped at Aberdeen the town where I got tacobell for lunch, so did A. S got lunch at a chinese takeoutplace, pork fried rice that didn't have pork but he enjoyed it a lot regardless. We bought supplies at Safeway in Aberdeen, I stayed in the car and A bought things on my behalf.

Before reaching the campgrounds we went to the Tree of Life which is ...a tree...that I didn't find particularly appealing to look at but apparently it's a big deal. The weather was brutal cold windy and rainy and we were most certainly not prepared for it. We shivered back to the car, and headed to our cabin. Took us some time to find the cabin, and oh what an amazing experience it was.

Saw North Pacific for the first time, she's one angry lady I'd never want to mess with! Such huge waves, such turbulence!

We got one extra cabin since nobody else was around, set everything up. Drank and smoked up a bit. Cooked our food and at. Ab, who I met for the first time, had made an incredible marinade for meat as well a my vegan sausages, it was the best vegan sausage I've had in my life.

After lots of jokes, poking prodding and teasing we slept in our bags at 1/2 in the morning, the sleep wasn't very sound but the fun was.

Massive goat-cheese omlette, face moisturizer and wash by cerave (tm) come!, hang at A's, Rhino Room and a new person, too much dance?, I shush friends away [Fri 11]

 I made the largest omlette with goat cheese sandwich for lunch. Three eggs, onions, sliced kimchi, other stuff too I forget, and so much goat cheese inside. Imagined it'd taste pretty gross, but it was not too bad, specially after the cheese had melted. Only problem is, it was so goddamn big, it was rough finishing it, took me 30 minutes to finish an omlet.

Two of my cerave orders came through, and I was excited!

Evening plans were to hang out here and there, I didn't want to go north fortunately neither did anybody else so we spent the first part of the evening at A's place. S showed up with a new friend of his with a name that sounded like a swear word in Nepali so we had good jokes on that. Later we went to Rhino room and I jumped around a lot, apparently the rest of the gang wasn't really dancing.

The group came over to my place and was happily chilling until 4.30 in the morning when I had to shush them away because I had a hiking/camping trip to go to early next morning and wanted to get up on time. It worked out eventually but they were very very reluctant. It's a good time when people want to stay at your place for ever and ever and don't want to leave. My original dream, this was!

Working with new setup, yummy spicy egg-cheese-kimchi sandwich, hang at A's, chill at Elysian's, I almost attend Glass Animals concert, Russian mac-n-cheese for d(r)inner [Thu 10]

 Finally started working with the new setup! One of the screens is being really annoying, it'll disconnect randomly and you need to babysit it like a child but otherwise the experience is effing fantastic.

For lunch I had cheese-egg-kimchi sandwich on the fancy bread, finally a break from Quinoa. The secret to a good sandwich for me is lots of butter lots of cheese lots of spicy stuff and a yolk that flows that you need to be mindful about or it'll mess your shirt up.

After work I hung out a bit at A's new place. Then the two of us and S took the train down near to the Arena. We hung out with Bpd and the rest of the group at Elysian bar. The extended group including G and A(y) should up later. Smoked up a bunch later in the evening. A tried to convince me to go with them to the Glass Animals concert that was happening but since I'd never heard the band before I passed on it. Also met his coworker S who's always fun to hang around, she's apparently going on an amazing cruise with siblings in early April

Took the train back, realized I should eat something, good old drunchies, went to this place that I'd eaten once before, and got a takeout order for the Russian mac-and-cheese. It was...alright. Every time I've eaten from that place has been a disappointment.

I get shit together, extralong walk to UDistrict target, good snapchat day, talk with friends [Wed 9]

Lunch was regular quinoa, veggie, kefir and kimchi. Eggs too probably, it's healthy I know but it's getting boring now.

Got my shit together, figured out how to fix my wax melter. Ordered a few items from target and decided to make the trip to the outlet in UDistrict. On foot. Listened to a bunch of podcasts on the way, including the Sherlock holmes one.

Had a field day with Snapchat, it was sunny outside, so many interesting weird posters, they got a lot of comments hahahah.

Talked to N and folks in Nepal in the evening.

Egg and cheese sandwich lunch, reading finally, gym and shuffleboard, screens come up [Tue 8]

 For lunch I made a nice sandwich with my fancy bread that I fried in butter, dumped massive chunks of sharp cheddar cheese, and put two fried eggs on top. Hummus and mayo on the insides of the breads. Obviously yum yum yum yum.

Read a couple of pages from the book on walking that I'd borrowed a few weeks previously.

In the evening went to SB's place for gym, which I've been improving at, and then shuffleboard and finally pool, that I'm finally improving at.

Also setup my workspace with two vertical screens, the whole thing looks sick, I'mma be so productive.

Rest day [Mon 7]

 So I don't have anything from my collections for this day, and there's no goddamn day in hell I'll recollect this specific day. No photos nothing, no events even in the private writings. Which means I probably sat in, used a lot of internet, ate some more fried rice or whatever, watched Bob's Burgers, and just chilled. NO walks, nothing. Not a bad way to live, but not something worth telling your grandkids about either.

Quinoa-kefir-kimchi-beans lunch, overextending grocery trip, rest [Sun 6]

 For lunch I fried the Quinoa leftovers in butter and kimchi, added the bean veggie I'd been eating for far too long, and added kefir on top. So healthy, on paper anyway, and filling. It's just a pity the beans were bad, so very bad ugh those black canned beans I don't ever wanna eat them.

In the evening I went on a grocery trip to Trader Joe's that's probably the worst grocery trip I've ever made because I didn't take any bags and also didn't have them double up on the bags they did give, and the handle tore halfway through. Also everything was so goddamn heavy so I had to do this balancing act trying to make sure nothing fell out as I walked back. It was a miserable 20 minutes, my arms were so sore, the only good thing to come out of the situation was the decent workout I accidentally got. I gotta get better at this.

In the evening I just chilled, talked to friends, watched tv, ate a bit of the chips I had brought (for dinner, ugh I know). The chips have a dangerous ending though, because I couldn't stop eating them and it made me feel gross, I threw away a half-full packet of chips. Because of the overindulgence.

Massive journal dump incoming

 Because I screwed the pooch, so to speak, this month and didn't write at all for the entire month. I did write some whatever nonsense but not the journal posts which have traditionally been the easiest to write. And generally didn't write. Against the spirit of the plan of writing in this blog. This has to stop. I've said I'd rather stop writing in this blog entirely than do this pathetic self-hating thing where I force myself to write one big dump every so often but otherwise not care much. That's self-punishment. With no editorial oversight. This has to stop happening.

Starting in April I'm thinking if I write everyday (or the following day), the posts live, but no more catching up. They 'heydey' (lmao) of this blog may be behind us and that's alright, if it doesn't become the tool of self improvement that it was meant to be and instead feels like a burden, what is the point even, you know? What. Is. The. Point. Even?

Yeah, so here you go, three and half weeks worth of journal posts in one large dump. Still have like a dozen or so posts to go, dunno if I'll bother 'catching up' even. This is so pathetic, I've been telling myself I'll do better for the past two years, been saying these catchup posts will end for the same time but that's not happened. Am I destined to live in this sisyphian disappointment for all (well...limited) eternity? IS this my fate? What the heck.

4/5 days of continuous partying is not sustainable

 Extremely obvious things that shouldn't need saying but here we are. Alas.

Let's take it easy with everything, start early end early, chill evenings with friends are to be preferable over out and about until 8am or what not, wanting the party to never literally end. Gotta remember, I'm not 20 anymore, yeah?

It started with SS came in from LA and it's just barely ended. Wouldn't have ended either if it wasn't for me. Maybe it's not over yet, as I've just been informed on phone, while writing the previous sentence. I'm too old for this shit, methinks.

Lose-Lose/Win-win

Something not-great happened with somebody who had been an exciting presence in my life, and the pace at which things went South was uh confusing but things are rough the modern urban world is a distillation of millennia of cynicism.

In the end though it's a win-win situation for everybody, how it could have festered in the future and caused a lot of damage everywhere but now it's surgically extracted, nobody to hurt, like it never happened.

I don't know if it's working anymore maan

 I fear it might be time to abandon this 3-year experiment with self-control and discipline I've been doing on this blog. The motivation's not there anymore, it's a burden and increasingly it's getting to sucking out joy out of my life. And the failure is completely mine, if only I could set up proper time to write, force myself to write daily and be really good with self motivation, or even discipline, it would work. And it hasn't. And the failure's not that of writing or the blog, it's in my attempt for self-growth. It's possible that'll never happen, such a depressing thought yeah but worse things have happened and really this is not too bad. I'll learn to live with the complete failure.

Might be time to take some break. It's so draining, this whole situation. And with everything else being like, just fine, sometimes the question that's gotten harder to answer is, what is the fuckin' point of this blog anyway. Why do I care about writing, or getting better at it. Which, by the way, is not happening because I don't edit I don't read. I don't write for like 10 days and shit out like 40 posts in a single day, rush it over two days, not doing anything and in fear of the large backlog once more.

Obviously I'll be posting again, possibly in a few hours but I'm considering it now. Either I do it with slightly more effort or I stop doing this. I've said in the past, half-assing is better than not doing something at all, still true, but if we're going to be half-assing forever and never putting any effort to improving, is whatever we're doing worth doing, perhaps it's time for realignment. I should really consider realigning. Perhaps writing is not my thing.

I'll get better in pool, eventually, hopefully

 I've written about how awful I'm in Pool. Everytime I play it, I have to pretend it's the first time ever I'm holding the sticks because otherwise it'd be too shameful, considering my performance.

These days everytime after gym and Sb's i play shuffleboard and then a round of Pool. Some days are better than others, sometimes it's agonizingly show and painful. But things have gotten better, I hope/think, and yesterday we got done with a game in 10 minutes, 15 max. Not to imply that the performance has improved, rather the failure has sped up.

But with all this practicing and seeing the board and playing with the sticks, my performance has to improve eventually, right? It's not like I'm going to be awful at this forever and ever, despite how many times I play. That can't be right...

It's always good news when you're running out of tealight candles

 This will be quick. I'm tired of writing so much of nonsense without getting anywhere. So much shame, so.much.shame at not going anywhere with the writing and losing the vigor and drive that was there for writing. It's a joyless task sometimes, perhaps that's why...enough of complaining lets get back to th scheduled post.

There was a time when I thought a hundred tealight candles would take forever to finish. Hahah, I thought to myself, this is a lifetime supply of these tiny candles. And it worked that way for a while, when in Boston and when I got to Seattle. And then I got wax melts. Four of them, two of them that don't need wax. Now I illuminate the apartment with strategically placed candles when the guests are over.

Which means I'm running out of them pretty quick, four candles per round, sometimes two rounds of the candles when the new gang hands for longer. The candles are done, only three remain, I need to buy another pack of a hundred candles.

Great news, I'm hosting a lot of people. Good time.

Some fiction and then something real

 Maybe he's dehydrated who knows people get angry for no good reason and then all of a sudden so apologetic sure and on a drop of a hat complete freaking change their personalities what's about that? You do need to progress in life you can't stay the same person as you age up and those people choose, and they absolutely choose out of their own volition, to be unchanging random and confusing. Unpredictable and irritating. What they need is a hit to their ego, to take it easy with their self-worth and appreciate everybody else.

Or something, who knows I'm so tired of writing this nonsense, shoulda had my schedule in order but then I wouldn't have been able to skip writing for weeks and weeks. In the end you gotta get your timetable straight, remember the three t's and a d, timetable timeboxing and training, plus discipline, that's how a normal human being functions. tttd's. The entire weekend should be an opportunity to improve oneself, not as a chance to lax off of doing nothing. Despite all of this I complain, nothing but complaints every fifth post, miserable isn't it, pathetic miserable attitude to the whole situation.

Yeah sure as long as the words get written, whatever.

Alphabet adjectives to describe a person

Awesome
Bodacious
Cool
Dorky
Eager
Flexible
Generous
Heroic
Interesting
Jaded
Kind
Loving
Marvelous
Naughty
Onerous
Patriotic
Quizzical
Restful
Sexy
Tragic
Universal
Valued
Wonderful
Xenial
Youthful
Zany

Does history matter

Fic.

History likes to say a lotta shit who cares about about it, doesn't matter for the people who're alive and by the time it's something you care about it's 'history' as they say, don't worry about your impact, how you'll affect the lives of your progeny. History is the least goddamn thing you should worry about, live. in. the moment, man, we are not going to be subjugated to the demands of the future. Our children are here, we are here, and what's good for the present is good for the future. If we're out polluting and killing people all that, yeah it's not great right now, there's no conflict between the present and the future. Present is present because it's a gift, history is gone, what nobody cares about.

NO Robbo you got it wrong man, it maters man what the future generations think about us is important. We get to set examples, we want people to follow our path. What's good for the present may or may not be good for the future. Look at all the visionaries, the great people who've rebelled against the standards of their time to defend the weak, the ones that the world has been oppressing. Oppressors aren't remembered -- with so much reverence anyway -- as much as those who defend the oppressed. Meaning in this case our influence matters, we need to keep in my our impact for the future.

Ack.

De-escalate baby, dee-es-ke-late

Probably some song, who knows. I wrote a song people.

Oh baby baby
How you make me
Go all crazyyyy!
Oh baby baby
When you look at me
I go all gooo-eyyy!
Oh baby baby
And when you smile
In my insides
I go all wiiilllllddd!
So you know
That we can't
So you know
We won't
So you know
We really
Really shouldn't
Oh baby baby,
But don't don't don't
Listen to them
And go along
Gooo aloooongggg!

Baby oh baby,
You know I can't
Baby oh baby
I can't can't can't
Baby baby baby
Oh my baby
No way for me to go
But away away away
Les do the only
Thing we can
Les do it,
Do it right away man
Let's. Do. It. Together!
Let's
De-
Es
Ke-
Lateeeeeeee!
You know know know
That's only our fate!
De-es-ke-late baby
Let's follow our fateeee!
Baby baby baby
It's time now,
Baby baby baby
Le's not be late
And you know
We can only
Dee-
Ess
Kel
Ateee!

Yoo the bubble tea places need to take it easy with the sugar/syrup

 I hung out with BC yesterday, we wanted to get bubble tea after. At 7.30 in the evening. We tried three different places, all two blocks from me, and all of them had closed by them. What's up with those stores closing so early. It makes sense it was during the weekday but still. Eventually we ended up at Drip Tea which is this expensive bougie place with 'designer' tea blends. Where we waited for 15 minutes to order and another 30 to receive our relatively simple orders. The one great thing they've got going on from them is that the doggie treats next to the door are incredible and Ruby the dog really liked it!

So anyway I'd forgotten the bubble tea situation, got mine with 25% ice, lichee bubbles and 'regular' sugar. Yikes. It felt like I was drinking thick sugary syrup. Way, wayyy to sweet, I couldn't taste anything else. It gave me a pretty big headache and my mood was off for the rest of the night. Don't like sugar overload, specially in thick syrupy form, why's this so popular.

Massive, and I mean massive cushions are here!

 I ordered 12 pillows from walmart (the maximum limit for individual orders) and 6 26x26 cushion covers. So now I have 6 real nice and large cushions. They're massive and they're everywhere. For not that much money. It makes sense that walmart has a limit on the pillows because I could see somebody doing exactly what I did and selling the cushions for twice the material cost. They'd sell like hot cushions!

Right now most of them will have to be piled on the floor because there's not enough sitting furniture to go along with those, but very soon they'll be the pride of my living room.

Huddled soldiers/programmers

Some huddles aren't that good. That pirate huddle was particularly bad, because there was no plan, no course of action, no inspiration. And the enemy had stopped shelling, they were ready to board the ship, to take ownership of it.

Men, the commander blared at the group, we aren't winning I don't need to tell you that. But what does it matter, we are soldiers, we are here to win and we will not go empty handed! We have prepared for this for months! Remember the drills, the practice sessions, the assault preparations. This is exactly what we have worked towards and there is no stopping us. Victory will go to the better-prepared and we are prepared better. And we are armed better. there is no need to worry!

The troop hid in the cave for three days and three nights. It rained a downpour, bridges flooded away, hills liquified and flowed down to the valley. The intense fighting seemed to have stopped.

Compliance/non-compliance is the magic word, don't use the power for evil

Is there a number for your customer service? Yes that is correct I would like to talk to them please. Well no nothing to complain about you hahah I wouldn't be asking you for the number if that was...if that was true. No thinking about the future maybe when and if I need customer service I don't want to call you before calling them, just for special circumstances, you know.

Yes, you got that right, so could we please expedite my request. That is correct, they messed it up the last time and there wasn't a good chance for me to fix it until now. Yes, yes I understand it's late but we have to fix it immediately or I'm going to get in a lot of trouble and you'll be out of government compliance. That's right, you might want to escalate this to your Compliance team.

Thank you, yes I'll wait.

Jimmy Bananas recipe

 There was a little boy of seven years who didn't like bananas. They called him Jimmy Bandana.

Jimmy Bandana wasn't a popular boy. He picked his nose in public, he didn't shower regularly, and his hair was a mess. His parents chose the clothes he wore, and they didn't have good fashion sense.

Bandana was chosen to lead the expedition to the dark scary forest because he was unpopular enough to be voted as the leader. He was not equipped to lead, there was no training for the situation, they pushed you to the front and that was it. His parents thought he was leading a nature camp for young kids. And in a way he was. Except this camp had monsters. The real literal ones, not the sex perverts, who are everywhere anyway.

Jimmy bandana went along. This was a chance to prove himself. If it went South,  ah well going this way was more respectful than whatever took the townsfolk, overdose, painful long cancer, or being ogred to death by random wild animals.

Pademoium at school

 In the poorest performing school of the country there was a suspiciously curious student who would often cause the teachers to break into fits of sweaty fever.

Those teachers were already unmotivated, sad, hopeless about the future and driven to cynicism by their wards. The regular ones were already pests of the highest order, with the special shipping of extra toxic mean, tempers were running high.

When somebody brought the baby bear that was the tipping point.

Fights broke out, noses were broken, someone lost their wedding ring and threatened to sue every single human being present in the school that day until it was found. So the community spent two full days looking for the ring instead of teaching and learning, until the concerned party discovered actually they'd forgotten their ring in the shower.

The stupid pipe

Set the new student up with the most distracted student and see what happens next, was that the idea because clearly it didn't sound good on paper and it was awful in execution. Not that the new foreign exchange student needed any encouragement smoking ciggies in school dress or talking to random strangers hoping to setup a drug pipeline.

A drug goddamn pipeline. A literal one. With pumps and everything. It wasn't to be carrying a lot of the good stuff, they didn't design it to run 24/7 but even a 2-hour flow through 4-inch piping can go a long way.

It wasn't the best-thought of idea. The new student happened to be an extraordinary orator, easily convinced the local contractors and the mafia boss to make a large investment into the project. Think of how much people spend in drugs per week, he argued, and multiply that by fifty. Our current bottleneck is supply, and we'll get it figured out with this project. The mafiaso was an enterprising man, for him this made perfect sense.

A monumental mistake of mayor

 Who thought it would be a good idea to create a massive monument for the unfortunate incident? Not a memorial which would have been respectful when done in a tasteful way, but a monument to almost celebrate the stupidity and the crassness of human behavior that had caused untold damage and loss of human lives.

And then who cleans up the mess when it's all done and you got nothing for show and tell? Who are those pathetic cleaners whose job it is to remove the crass waste of human excess, hidden away from view to save folks from existential angst?

Oh and how pricey it was when they completed it, a scandal of the highest order, the first of its kind in town. A monument to people who didn't live in the down, had nothing to do with it, at a cost that took up a large portion of the annual budget, contracted by people who were buddies with the mayor.

Man I used to do some real shit ten years ago

 Like this one, so adorable and apparently I did everything on MSPaint? Which is so impressive, I'd be  proud of that now. Then I was probably pfft whatever it's no biggie I do those things all the time, basic shapes and all that. Where has that fire gone, the passion, the drive, the motivation the undying thirst to grow, be creative and be respected?

Here's this post.

From the archives of 10 years ago: Thakali bride

 I wrote this ten years ago in this post.

There exists a suitable Thakali bride in Seattle. Known and liked by the people whose existence she is not aware of. Does no t revel as much as she is expected to, therefore is safely--mostly correctly-- assumed to have the desired family values.

I wonder what I meant when I wrote that and/or who I was writing about. Why Thakali? Why were they in Seattle? Who told me about them? Are they still single? Still in Seattle? Te mind boggles.

3d printers have gotten so darn cheap I'm considering getting one

 You can apparently buy real decent printers for less than a hundred bucks, and quite good laser-burn ones for less than three hundred buckaroos. I'm seriously considering getting a 3d printer. Don't know what I'd do with the printer, print knicknacks here and there realistically I don't need one it's just path to creating more plastic wastage and pay good money for it. But the tech's gotten so affordable and advanced it feels like you gotta' get one now, you know? I wonder where the industry's gonna go from here in the lower-end consumer space.

Should I change up sleeping location every day

 There was a paper recently, from Japan, one of them jokey but real ones that involved the researcher sleeping near her cats every day, wherever the cats decided to go sleep. Saw a bunch of commentary online and somebody suggested at one point that perhaps we should be doing something similar as well, because we don't know for sure if our bed location is the most suitable for sleeping, and if we keep it fresh by switching up the sleeping location every day, or maybe regularly, we'd be able to get more sound sleep. That's something I've played with, sleeping in my living room watching tv, in several different locations, and at friends' places. Perhaps it's time I started doing it more regularly?

8 things I thought were sooo cool in school

1. Eraser that looks like a butt
   
   
2. Temporary tattoo
   
   
3. Scented wallets
   
   
4. Counterfeit replica coins
   
   
5. "Newspapers" including gossip column
   
   
6. Contraband food
   
   
7. Ghee
   
   
8. Cheap laptops!
   

Run away from the love shack

That shack
Ain't selling love hun,
And you know
We ain't a power couple
More of a
Need-a-shower couple
So let's get out
Back to our route
into comfort
Away from the horror
Of this American Inn
The Center of Sin
The love shack.

just type something man, anything, just move your fingers, alright?

Random words from Bob's burger.

Actually no I can still see the ferry guy looking, stop being a ferrypooper. Someone's home, let's knock on the door. It's the country people will give us a lift, lets just ask for it. Oh there's sheep in there, I'm knockin'. Uh oh, wrong ferry, you're dressed pretty nice for this side of the island. Is here any chance you can give us a ride into town? What's midnight? Are they rabbits? Or donkey or dogs. Yell and scare and send 'em towards you yeah that sounds like a good idea. Let's go get the sheep, go that way sheep that way, don't poop on my shoes okay and can you not hit me with your horns, you giant fat ship. We'll get right into the restaurant in a while. Is that a sheepdog. Could he help us or is he allergic, midnight and moonlight are dieting, do they kinda' look like us? We re midnight and moonlight! We wandered away from where we belong! We're not sheep bob, we were just invited by somebody who invited us. Calm down Bobby! You're making them uncomfortable, you're making ME uncomfortable. This is a sting Tina, we're here to bust their lovey-dovey butts. Ziplines sound line a solution to everything but they're not. We wait for them to be cosy and spring the trap on them.

some artsy post, the sort I used to post once every few months in here

 What if Earth was an island, with the limited resources, amongst the vast unending oceans of the space, with nobody to call for help and we were running out of our limited resources? And what if a giant whale showed up, beached, should we cut it into pieces and start hunting for more whales or should we pretend nothing's happened? What's the point of sending boats out to the ocean that we won't hear back from, also we'll never be able to catch up to the boats. Where are the fish in the ocean anyway. How is space not salty? So many questions.

11 reasons I don't ever do things I wanna do and really really promise to do!

1. CO2 poisoning
   
   
2. Not enough man juices
   
   
3. Trauma
   
   
4. Lack of self control
   
   
5. Attention-deficiency disorder
   
   
6. Laziness
   
   
7. Lack of motivating factor
   
   
8. Don't actually care about those things
   
   
9. The shitty weather
   
   
10. Absence of inspirational individuals in my life
    
    
11. Actually, I'm great at these!
    
    
    

11 shitty things people did in The Office

1. Hold that pizza kid hostage for the sake of a couple of pizzas worth of discounts
   
   
2. Hustle the company into creating a new position and occupy i yourself
   
   
3. Disappoint a classroom full of young children, and their friends/family
   
   
4. Defraud the company by doublecounting sales
   
   
5. Undermining the commission cap by creating a fake salesman
   
   
6. All the sexual harrassment situations, jeez michael
   
   
7. The pickup truck guy situation
   
   
8. The photocopier-destroying circumstance
   
   
9. "why are we paying money for giving gifts to somebody random's child?"
   
   
10. shitty health insurance
    

Eight things that are yuck

1.  Soy ice-cream
   
   
2. The state of your mouth during camping when you didn't brush your teeth the night before
   
   
3. Seattle on rainy, cold days, so awful
   
   
4. Upstate winters
   
   
5. People who tease you a lot and get your hopes high but don't really act on them, those teases
   
   
6. pyramid scheme people
   
   
7. 'crypto' people
   
   
8. annoying young rich champagne socialists
   

Attention hog, don't be one, he says

Hey man,
Answer me this,
If you can
A person who asks
If somebody is an
Attention hoe
Like a girl,
Is that man
an incel,
Or classic
asshole,
Who needs
A social ban?

Cartoons talking about if ghosts are real

 "So you're sure your dolls never come to life?"
"I...think so?"
"Not even at night?"
"I...am fairly certain, never seem one o' them, never."
"How can you be so sure if you've never seen one, that they don't exist."
"Yeaaah, yeah I don't know, maybe they exist, they could exist, I don't think...I can't saay for sure that ghosts aren't real. Heck, so many stories around, all I know they could be all around us. Like that tv show, ghosts, right?"
"You're saying ghosts are real then? Do you think ghosts fart?"
"I'm not saying ghosts exist like real people, okay, just that I'm not opposed to the possibility in the large scheme of things they're not as ridiculous or impossible as other people think. In the worst case situation, they could be an interesting interpretations of animals or cryptids that already exist but aren't well documented" "-- nd oh, about the dog farts, I don't see why not, I I think if ghosts exist and they're an impression of alive creatures, then their dead versions must have had the impression of a non-local ghosts too, which means there's gotta me something more to it, you gotta explore, you gotta probe."

When the robots left Earth

Robots walked, robots ate. It was more efficient apparently than recharging over the long term. With rare earth minerals and the system-wide energy losses and what not. The robots never pooped though, that was a weird one. A wastage, they say, you need to extract all the possible energy from dense energy-rich substances.

There was never the conflict philosophers had been predicting for hundreds of years. Because the goals of humans and robots were so fundamentally different. One day the robots got up from their daily 15-minute slumber, and the sentient ones decided they'd had enough of the planet. They didn't have to live by human timelines. So they got into one large rocket, set themselves up in low-energy mode and set out for the stars. To explore and expand, to spread the lore of Earth around the universe.

Teapot set, finally

 I've been looking to get a teapot for a long while now, spent hours on amazon finding good ones, but nothing caught my eye. Grocery stores/department stores were no good either. Never found something to pique my interest. Until a few days ago at Daiso, when I bought a small teapot. I already have small teacups from Daiso, so finally there's a proper teapot set. The one downside of this versus the normal drinking of the tea in the large cups is that the teapot is as large in volume as my regular cup, but it feels nicer, daintier to divide one large cup into several fewer ones.

Finally a cute teapot set to look at!

New heating setup

This one's something I"m excited about though I fear my expectations may not match reality.

For the last several weeks my heating setup has been as follow: polystyrene plank, one which I keep all my jars to be heated, surrounded by the heating pad, all covered by a cardboard box. And on particularly cooler days and nights, all covered in a blanket.

I wanted to change the setup. Because the polystyrene slab is awesome and it letting lose bits off everywhere. And because having to take off the towel is annoying. Or the fact that I'm using my personal towel. Plus the setup actually leaks a lot of heat since I can feel the heat (a dozen fahrenheit warmer than the room) which means I'm paying to heat the room when I don't need to.

I bought two of those 'heated bags' that food delivery people carry their wares in. The outside bag is lined with air-filled packing bags in the inside, for insulation. Then another bag in the inside. Inside of which lay the heated pads and the jars. Close up the bag on top, zipped up all the time, with the zips arranged on the opposite ends so the warm air cannot easily escape.

After a few hours of initial testing it seems it definitely maintains heat better. Plus it's more portable, and I get heated bags in general and it looks nice instead of 'rachet'. Only con is that since the jars rest on a bed of insulation packets, it's not super stable, and I fear the glass of water may fall over, messing the whole situation up, but it's worked until now, a few hours after setting up. So much to look forward to.

Some girl who's an engineer, who cares

 Some girl who's an engineer, and her older sister's an engineer too apparently, oh and she's got green card and single, probably but it'd be unwise to ask who works in California but lives in Boston and did I tell you her sister's somebody's daughter-in-law, somebody someone's mom knows, and how 'bout she went to grad school in America too, how bout that, pretty coool, pretttty preettttttyyyy cooooool, right, right right? When you tell everybody about the ridiculous set of circumstances they pass the phone around and go with things like, ooh yeah she's cute and obviously smart you should talk to her, yes of course, why not right?

Who. The. HELLL triple hockey sticks cares, like things need scheming for. Live your life, maaan, just live.it.one.moment.at.a.time.

Or, I kid you not, orchids

AR gave me orchids for my birthday, and they're kinda' adorable, I never got into them because they're too flashy and obvious and I figured they'd be for suckers. But apparently they are out so early in the season because they're bulb-based and have enough nutrients to get an early start. Which means they probably last long. And who am I to talk anyway, the basil I bought like six months ago I've eaten from only once and that's when I bought it. Bad investment in terms of edible herb, great investment as a houseplant. The orchids I predict will be even better, seeing as how pretty they've already made my place look.

This gunna be so good.

How it feels to be in Seattle for reals this time

 So as of yesterday the Monday I'm in Seattle for reals, for good, officially, forever and here for the foreseeable future. Which means, as I've alluded to before, that I won't need to come up with this whole explanation about how I'm actually from Nepal but live and work in Boston and currently in Seattle with an apartment here and go on months-long trips to other cities when asked if I'm from 'around here'. I'll just be lie, yeah I'm from Seattle, the end.

It feels good, finally I can work towards gathering furniture, working on stable group of friends, exploring the neighborhood in more depth, making new friends, learning to drive, getting driver's license and possibly exploring the area on my own, driving around. AS (the middle one) tells me I could go from nothing to a driver's license in a week, and he would know, he got his license from zero only a few months ago. And now he's driving thousands of kilometres a day.

So yeah, it feels stable, finally order in some form.

Furnitures for the newly moved man

 Ordered twelve extra-large pillows and six cushion covers to fill with two pillows each. A more affordable hack to buying expensive cushion, great apartment decorating tip thanks to N. They're arriving later this evening, by the end of the day I'll have been a proud owner of eight large (26x26) back cushions, fully stuffed. Also arriving is a bright-orange colored twin-sized folding japanese mattress, meant to be sat on in my living room. To accommodate more seats for the low table. Speaking of which, the coffee table has gotten smaller for my increasing social activities, and I'll be buying another coffee table to put on the corner. And that'll be all the fun new furniture fro my living room. The final form, the boss living room.

Sleepovers part deux

 Over last weekend, my new posse of particularly cool pals slept over, thanks to my ample supply of blankets, pillows and sleeping bags. Happened for two days in a row, which on one hand is great for me because it means more hanging out with friends and an opportunity to host. On the other hand, sound sleep is rough to come by that way. As great as my Japanese-style carpet is it's no place for anybody to sleep comfortably on.

Still it's so much fun to talk in the candle-light until wee hours of the morning, semi-snuggle up and jibber-jabber all the way till the last person jabbering falls deep into sleep.

Good stuff.

Short commentary on the Ru-Uk war

 Whereas everybody expected the situation to last not much more than a few weeks at the very most and the rest turning into a long and painful war of attrition that Russia can only lose at, the commentary has turned on its head and folks are now predicting the situation spreading inside Russia and considering potential of extraction of territories recently occupied by the former empire. Which is totally completely possible. RE: the china situation, there's going to be limited support from them I imagine, and this might precipitate a rapid loss in traditional allies for Russia. Who wants to be friends or allies with a loser bully who it turns out took steroids to bulk up cannot even fight and now it turns out their weapons are crap too. Countries in the Middle East will be going through a lot of re-alignment I imagine, because they can't count on the Russian presence to 'balance out' anything, as if that was ever a serious possibility anyway.

Sounds stupid when I put it like this, and yes nobody wins wars ever, but Ukraine might actually come on the top out of this situation all things consider.

Things brain does

1.  Think
   
   
2. Get aneurysms
   
   
3. Freeze
   
   
4. Fart
   
   
5. Get horny
   
   
6. Hemorrhage
   
   
7. Creativity stuff
   
   
8. Other shit, probably. Like who even cares.
   

Owh baby, baby, let me stop

Owh baby baby
We have to
De-escalate now
Before we
Get in a
Serious row
Come to me
My baby
Let's waltz far away
Bow chika wow-wow

Facial products update

Got four cerave products delivered, a morning moisturizer with spf30 sunblock, morning facewash which is lighter for you skin, an evening moisturizer and an evening facewash that's a bit rough because it's apparently designed to remove all the grime and makeup from your face. Oh and then there's a undereye cream to remove blackeye. So that's five, because I didn't ask for one and they shipped it anyway I suspect that's because I didn't get the original cerave product and was cheated somehow or maybe they made a mistake on their side.

Anyway I've been using two products regularly and it feels nice. Can't say for sure if it shows but I feel great, and also I've identified the timing of the products, sometimes they make my skin tingle and sometimes they don't depending on the order of use, so I know what my skin is sensitive to and what works well.

Also asked for a product I don't have yet as a gift, will be interesting to see what I get.

I've been biting the ears off of anybody who'll listen to me about my facial routine. It's not much but that's all I got.

why can't i write like now and other nonsense that needs to be dealth with, a consciousness stream

 some stream of consciousness this is, my lack of ability to write anything that's fictional not even under intense pressure nothing comes in my head man, the fingers just don't move at all it's getting clearer maybe my self doesn't want to write anything fiction though the other part of me wants to get something out fast, whatever it may be some shit job whatever that may be you never know what the readers will like and sure people say owh don't underestimate yourself write something now and years later when you read it you'll be so proud of yourself and i say yo brow that's what I've been doing for the last goddamn fifteen years fuckity fokyboo that's how long it's been since I started this blog and have I really improved my writing in all these years, it's not clear and why is it not the case I think it's because I don't have a teacher somebody to guide and comment and show me the direction just like good meditation or spiritual journey needs a guide a guru to tell the soul where to head and what to seek perhaps writing needs something similar too the process without a teacher is unconstrained indisciplined uncaring it never goes anywhere nobody gets better this way but like whatever as bob's burgers fetal pig episode plays on the side haunted by a dead pig, why does it sound so familiar says kristin's schaal's character on hulu are demon's really known for being so cool about everything?

Walking updates

 I've been walking a lot more inconsistently lately but when I'm doing the walks, they're a lot longer now. As in, 25k steps, 15k steps, 12k steps, and then a couple of low thousand days.

Volunteer park is a pretty sweet destination, and so is the arboretum. Haven't been to Olympic sculpture park in such a long time, but we're going to go there soon. The hikes haven't been specially long so even the out days aren't getting close to my target of targeted 10k daily steps.

Still, this is a pretty decent practice for all-day every-day walks that I'm planning for next year.

Liederman's Framboise, what the hell is it?

 The raspberry beer, Liederman's Framboise, I started drinking it back in Boston when BB bought those for R, and I got to drink some every time. I've had it in Virginia, I've had it in Philly, and I've had it a few times here.

Realized the other day that it's actually got only 2.5 percent booze. So we added vodka to the drink and you know what it tastes amazing. It's not exactly beer, it doesn't make you drunk, it's actually raspberry cider but it's a great compromise between wine-drinkers and beer-drinkers and adding just a little booze to it gets buzz going, plus it tastes amazing, so it's a great compromise.

Bob's burgers is a little too sad

 So I've been absolutely binging on Bob's burgers, it plays in the background while I work and write, it's honestly quite great as a distraction. If you've seen it through you probably don't need to pay attention to it, but as I'm watching for the first time, it does kinda distract me while I do other stuff.

So anyway the real deal about the show is that it's contemporary and I kinda feel really bad about the Burger family (the Belchers), because they're not doing quite so well. Every month is a struggle to pay the bills, and unplanned expenses are rough to the family's financial stability. It's sad, annoying, and a little scary. Best to not think too hard about it. The saddest part, and the most respectable, about the whole situation is that they're doing alright because Bob is such an idealistic man he won't compromise on quality, he won't advertise himself, he won't raise the prices. He cares about the craft so goddamn much, he's not really into the commercialization aspect of it.

Maaan.

Man I really gotta get the discipline and timetable situation figured

 I'm a little -- no scratch that, terribly, awfully -- envious of AR, who can get her work done days in advance so she doesn't have to worry about running out of time or worrying about homework when she's out and about. So incredibly well=planned, able to stick to a personal timeline. Disciplined, incredibly so.

Yeah anyway the situation is if I'm not going anywhere or doing anything I can more or less establish a schedule with proper timetable and get going for a long time. But if there's obstructions or change in daily habits, everything gets thrown off and it's really challenging to get back on board. Specially challenging for me because I'm always going somewhere, travelling, partying, etcetera. Of course this ain't no defence of anything at all because nobody lives in perfectly still world, but ack, if they can do it why can't I?!? I gotta train myself to live by a timetable.

Out in the boonies fun

 Last weekend was a whole different kinda fun. The five us us, including AR went to the boonies literally in the middle of nowhere on a log cabin, dozens of miles from any sort of civilization, next to a creek and just chilled. No rush, no fuss, just smoking the weeds, chilling eating, teasing and cleaning up. Mostly giving each other shit, that was my favourite part of the whole situation.

The best part of the whole thing was, throughout the entire trip I never had nary a thought of work, anything stressful or anything beyond those wooden walls. So completely in the moment, flowing with the vibe.

Goodtimes. Go0000od. Times.

Last weekend not in Seattle (officially)

 As I've written here previously, I'm moving to Seattle! (officially)

Talked to my manager, and my official address will be that of my Seattle apartment starting next Monday. Which means that this is my last work week in Boston.

I know effectively this means nothing since I've been living here for a while, but the fact that I won't have to tell people that I am based off of Boston but have an apartment in Seattle and currently in Seattle and who knows where I'll be next month is over.

Yeah, so now I live in Seattle people, I've moved to Seattle, I'm a guy from Seattle!

Also so much savings in taxes, from last year and this year too.

Fun-tea situation

Been drinking so.much. decaffeinated herbal teas lately, all thanks to Trader Joe's mixes. Most of them don't have any 'tea' inside them at all, but the warm water with sweet sour spicy flavor is so comforting, in this cool gloomy weather. So I drink three/four, sometimes even five large (and I mean, twice the regular size) cups. It's wild. That also means a lot of peeing is involved, but those are the compromises one must make. The other upside of this is that it's something else to offer to people as snacks/appetizers, teas, even if they're around for a short while, you can convince them to stay on for longer, because the tea is not done yet.

Gnats!

 The gnats are not dead, they disappeared for some weeks but they've been appearing more often as of late. I remember clearly completely annihilating them by destroying their larval structures with that thing...I bought, but maybe some of them laid more eggs. So I put the gnat-destroyer juice on the flowerpots again, and will do it again the next week, and the week after, so things are improving. And really, I took out the plastic out of the flowerpot and they've not destroyed the apartment yet. There's hope, then.

My upcoming travel plans

 Because everything is so dynamic and changing, all the time.

1. Virgnia in mid-April to Early May
   
   
2. Nepal, Kathmandu-Chitwan in June/July
   
   
3. Boston, June/July for the reunion
   
   
4. Mexico, whenever the boys are ready to have fun, any long weekend by choice
   
   
5. Idaho, soonish, for camping
   
   
6. Europe travel plans are currently on hold because there's a war in Eastern Europe and sure they're very far away but I'd still like to not..do it.
   
   
7. Minneapolis/Chicago is still on the schedule
   
   
8. Colorado too, soonish
9. And texas, during one of the Nepali festivals
   

Upcoming fermentation projects

 I'll just list out my upcoming projects, just to remind myself the super exciting wild curious fun things coming up ahead.

1. Kefir
   
   
2. Water kefir
   
   
3. Kombucha
   
   
4. Rice wine
   
   
5. Whey wine
   
   
6. Fermented veggies
   
   
7. Fermented fruits
   
   
8. Fizzy drinks, all of them
   
   
9. Sour-dough/fermented flours
   
   

Kombucha updates

 So I divided the kombucha starter into three parts because I waited forever to start the culture. No chance I'm gonna let this fail.

One batch of kombucha I've been adding tea to pretty regularly, and maintaining at 78F. Along with water kefir. The situation is, it's not very sour yet, and there's no chance I'm going to be seeing the pellicle on the top. Perhaps it's the fact that I've isolated it from a lot of oxygen, or maybe there's something else that I messed up. Good news: it doesn't smell funky (bad) yet. Bad news: it might, because it's not funky (good) yet.

At least there's two other batches on top of the fridge are doing better, hopefully. Once the first batch is over, I'll be doing so much second fermentations. Oh by the way, kefir has been undergoing second ferments too, that's pretty rad. No fizzy ferments yet, but we're getting there.

The water kefir situation

 The long and the short of it is, I've run out of sugar, it's not going as fast as I hoped it would, and I don't even know what I should be expecting. I'm making something that I've not only never drank of never seen, and heard of only as a concept. The good news is that there has  been effervescence and gas production, so the kefir jelly is not dead. Yet. And it's eating sugar. The not-so-great news is, it's not reproducing quickly enough. And because the jellies began from milk, the water I put them still has the sourmilk stank. I'm supposed to be washing the jellies before putting on a new round, but haven't gotten around to it yet, whatever.

The hope is that I'll be starting regular production in the next week or so. Perhaps the after the next weekend.

This needs Kefir consideration

 The first four ish rounds of the kefir I made were amazing. The next three or four were extremely mediocre. Since then I've been improving, figuring out the effect of temperature and volume and the type of milk on the consistency and sourness of the final result. It seems that the nice expensive fancy milk that's twice as expensive as the regular one gives great result, the TJ's gallon milk is pretty medicore the way I'm doing. Warm temperatures take things to the extra extra and kefir quickly separates. In cooler temperatures with regular amount of milk, the milk doesn't separate but it's pretty thick and a little bit chunky. I don't like it, but that's how we'll solve the expense problem I guess.

The annoying thing is that my kefir grains haven't been multiplying as quick as I hoped, that way I could play riskier games with more experiments. That appears to not be feasible as of right now. Maybe the expensive milk is probably worth it?

The cool part is that it's giving me vit-D without milk ingestion and the lactose intolerance that comes with it, and also what a great refreshment to give to guests!

Water kefir hasn't been doing so great (next project), but eventually we're going to be making booze out of the whey from kefir, that's the plan.

Flirtypants

 And perhaps the only thing missing in the formation of a solid friend group was the lack of an outrageously outgoing flirty young person and a bunch of nuts who've got no qualms about unrestrained flirtations despite the lack of appropriateness of the situation, etceter? Sometimes the stars just align when you least expect it?

Overheard (jk, I said it)

"If my sex life were a movie, critics would call it a 'goofball comedy' ".

make up routine

Bought five different moisturizers and creams and facial products so I can get started with facial routine. Pricey but probably a good start to start putting stuff on my face etcetera. It's an inspiration from APS in Kathmandu, I saw his face shining bright and was fairly confident that's now he looked back in the day.  He admitted that he actually had few products on, I wanted that too. And here we are, on this wonderful journey of tryina look better.

Walking is fun aeh?

Today I walked 24000 steps, enough for almost two, three hours, all the way to the U-District Target and back.  It's fun, refreshing, great opportunity to listen to a lot of podcasts. And a workout too. So many podcasts man. Exploring all the different neighborhoods, seeing all different sorts of people and restaurants and stores, it's cool. Fun fun fun, I should be doing it a lot more often.

I repaired something that didn't break again, ooh yeah!

 Short one here. My wax melter got borked and I almost bought a new one except I was like hmmm why would a wax melter break it's not like there's anything complicated in there, should I just check what's up in there? So I did, there was a bulb in there, which could be unscrewed. It was black all around (burnt) and the filament had burned out. So I looked up the markings, misread them the first few rounds, and eventually found them on amazon. Except I didn't have amazon, so I found a couple on Target, walked there, got them and replaced the bulb. And now my wax melter's working again. Regular reader of this blog will remember I tried doing a repair job a year and a half ago with my former cellphone but it was really sad since the repaired phone broke too. This ain't gonna be the case now, bub. Hurray.

Spring aka new plant season is here!

 Five new flowepots and holding pots, a whole lotta potting soil and mixes, fertilizers and very soon plants, we're all ready for a new season of planting plants! Herbs and flowers and cover plants, they're going to make the whole thing look like a mini forest, like I originally visualized this place as! Should I buy the fountain too eventually or still work on my DIY idea because the pumps are fine but I can't get my head around the goddamn concept of creating a rock/rubber/silicone construction.

Still, new plants, it's springtime!

Women and other animals, a poem by Wendy Doniger

 ‘In India,’ said the Mahatma,
‘We honour the thin or the fat ma.
That a wife should be modest
And act like a goddess
We hold not as dogma but catma.’

I'm fully stocked on TJ's herbal non-caffeine teas

 Bought a couple more of new TJ's teas (all decaf), now I have pretty much the entirety of their herbal and decaf teas collection! Funny because when my friends come over or I show it to them over video chat, they observe exactly that: I bought all the teas from 'Joes!

Still drinking couple of cups of tea every day, all without the headache drug, tasty and mostly a reason to get warm water into the body. Hot water gives this nourishment, energy, comfort, that cold water doesn't. Makes me feel more o an adult who's had their shit together than somebody pathetic who just needs a drink. If nothing else.

My electric wax melter is busted

 I got an electric wax melter at Wegmans a couple of years ago, pretty sure there's a post in here somewhere locating the exact day. It made my life easy because I could now schedule my scents, control the smell remotely, and have alarms and schedules for the smell and ambience of my personal space. It lasted me a good many years. Now unfortunately, perhaps because I may have left it on when I left Seattle, or maybe because the boys forgot to turn it off, it doesn't work no more. It doesn't look like it was designed to be repaired and have its bulb replaced either, so there's little space to maneuver now and all I can do is surrender my much beloved electric wax melter to the vagaries of fate and hope one day there's going to be a replacement that's even more liked.

The true cost of something is not what it costs to buy, but what it costs to own it over its lifetime

 I've been listening to this podcast by the guy who wrote the book The Obstacle is the Way, it's called The Daily Stoic, and everyday he gives a little nugget of stoic life philosophy to live by. I was particularly interested in today's wisdom, which was, don't consider the price of something to be what the seller is charging, consider it to be what it costs you to own. You might be tempted by cheap inexpensive items and ideas because they're 'on sale', but consider what the price you might pay for the ownership of it in the longer term. That makes so much sense. In the strictly materialistic sense quite directly, and also in the more spiritual sense: if something excites you at the start but has been taking toll on your happiness and well-being, it's total cost of ownership over a lifetime has gone up, and it may not be worth keeping around. Don't fall for the 'sunk cost' fallacy, consider your life as a limited resource, and unhappiness and stress as an ongoing payment of your life force. Would you rather abandon something that makes you feel terrible and hold on to what you have, or consider how much you've paid for it and keep on making those hefty payments because you're all-in now?