Golfing, cancelled plans, daynap, library, longwalk, writing, weekend working [Sun 31]

 I write this on the very evening of the same day, minutes before the clock runs out. Of course by the time I hit the finish button this day will have technically finished but so what.

Despite going to bed very late, got up quite early and had trouble falling back asleep because I'm a morning person now. Also, I've spent an hour working between this sentence and the previous one, and it's 1am, I'm burning the midnight oil literally.

Got up in the morning at 6.30 despite going to bed at 2, couldn't go to sleep quickly, slept maybe an hour extra. Got up nicely at 8.30, got ready and texted BC at 8.55 ish, she came at about nine, picked me up and we went to the golf course. Where she taught be techniques and position, though she herself is not particularly good. Instead of just hitting the balls wildly I thought about my shots, which is a form of growth. One hopes. We used her golfclub set, which was fun, the people at the course know be now, and will present me with my order even before I ask for anything.

Returned home, took a nice long nap because I wasn't feeling very well. Two hours of solid nap. Read a bunch during that. Got ready to go shopping but the girls cancelled apparently and I didn't feel like being out and about in the sun, so cancelled the shopping plans and went to the library. Drank kefir for lunch, it was a lot of kefir yeah.

Read a bit, wrote a bunch in the library, didn't realize they closed at 5 on Sundays, headed to Volunteer Park and slept/napped on the grass once again while listening to podcasts.

Did my usual volunteer/interlaken rounds, with extra walk here and there, so got upto 20k steps.

Walked back, got dinner of fries at little big burger.

Came home, watered plants, wrote a bunch, and started working, because on workdays my work is not possible due to resource contention. Started working at 9, it's 1.10am and I'm still working because it takes a long time. Played a few miserable games of Age of Empires to I guess.

I should go to bed, really. Told the team I'm skipping all the meetings tomorrow because I'm doing all the work in the evening! The builds and deploys take forever though and it's super frustrating. Ugh!

Incredibly productive day, walking records [Sat 30]

 I'm writing this the evening of the next day, and it's nice to realize that I'm not sending these things over a month. This was an exceedingly exciting day, an outrageously productive one at that. What a great honor to be writing about it.

First things first, I walked a total of 36.5 thousand steps during the day, which is a new record for me, since I started maintaining records. Second, it's a particularly big deal because it was not one of those hiking days or thru walking days, just another day in my life where I happened to walk a lot. Third, this was all despite the terrible weather. Fourth, this has come right at the perfect time, when everything else is on the motivated track, things are on the up and up.

Let's start!

Got up pretty early in the morning, changed, had a quick shower and went to CapHill stop, communicated with Sb so we were on the same train car. Walked from the UW station to the golfing range, and hit a couple dozen balls. I'm improving, and it's becoming more relaxing, loving the situation there.

Walked back to UW stop (already at a few thousand steps at this point), took the train back to CapHill, and SB wanted to get lunch and Bombay Burger, so did I, so we walked there. He bought me veggie burger, and we shared fries. Good meal, good talk, he went home, I went to the CapHill library, returned a couple of books, borrowed how to think like a freak book, spent a couple hours reading in the air conditioning. Talked to the boys in the chat throughout.

At about 2.30, walked to Sk's place, where AKS(e) was also hanging out. Drank a couple of fun sized cans of coke, talked, caught up and chilled generally this was a more fun hangout than we've been having in a while, because of the issues I've mentioned many times previously.

Then I went to Sb's place, where we played shuffle board, really competitive games, unsure if he's getting worse or I'm getting better but it was fun. Then we watched several really funny Peep Show episodes in his movie room. We had snacks and hot chocolate here. Stayed at his place until 6.30 ish, came back home, got rid of my backpack, and went on a nice long walk.

The walk was the usual volunteer-interlaken circuit, except I too a round or two extra of Volunteer while waiting for Aks(y) who also wanted to come walking. We spent some time listening to the violin performance in the park, then walked home together. I was already at 30k steps at this point.

Back home I made my classic taco dinner, then wrote a bunch, got ready for the night out, and headed to Sk's place, obviously on foot as well.

We left his place at 11.10 ish, and went to Barboza which had just ended their show, so we went in for free and danced a bunch. I should really get over my anxiety of dancing and talking to girls at the dance floor. We danced for like two hours, I was tired and returned home, the boys (aks, sk and sb) went to Havana to dance more.

Back home I chatted a bunch with IA whose birthday is coming soon, and went to sleep pretty late, late because I'd be going to golf again the next morning and should have slept on time.

Work stuff, and potentially risky situation incoming

 For the first time in many months I'll have my posting schedule as desired, which is not really that big of an achievement, but small wins count and in the summer when I'm being cooked by the goddamn weather while being sapped of all energy and motivation to cook anything of my own, this is a pretty big deal. So I'll keep it short because there's two journal posts to go after this and the journal posts are going to be nice and long because that's how I like 'em.

So my manager who I've worked for almost four years at this point got promoted to his rightly deserved position, and he manages other managers now. Somehow I got tagged along with a few other people as direct report to him still, but now they're hiring for his replacement, which means I'll have to deal with a new manager, try to impress them, basically justify my existence etcetera, which is not ideal. Also they'll want to know what I'm upto on a daily or weekly basis and well, to quote Michael Scott, I thrive under lack of supervision.

Couple of things I have to do before he leaves, my current manager that is. Get all the work done that's been pending, the everyday work. Then do the extra work I promised and hinted at completing but never ended up doing. Then out achieve whatever low expectations of performance I might have maintained and outdo that. Also take initiative and remind him of all the initiatives taken. Finally get him to sponsor my education and then ask for a raise before he leaves because that's important to me because I'm being humiliatingly underpaid. Hopefully a 10-15% raise will give me my general work satisfaction and inspire me to work hard. Or put in effort generally speaking. Fingers crossed, hoping this turns out well!

A farewell to the terrifying heatwave of this summer, good riddance

Zoe the heatwave,
First of your kind
Seattle bids you adieu
And hopes
To never see you again!

You boiled us
Inside our own houses
And sweat us
Like onions
In a large saucepan
You set wildfires
Across forests and towns
And you parched us
Filled our faces with frowns
But now you're leaving,
The Hell!
Finally, yeah!
Go away to faraway places
And get busy
With your own hobby
Not involving
Bothering us mortals
Get a life, girl
And a therapist, preferably
You're being to bothersome!

It was unpleasant while it lasted
And we will try forgetting the ordeal
As soon as our mortal minds will allow
But not the harm and damage you did
So if you ever decide
To show your ugly side again
We'll be prepared for you
And your friends too.

Mother nature and her rabbit children and coyote children

 There was a rabbit. Not the cute kind, but the brown and hairy type that will go through your trash and create general commotion in your community. It was quite good at making babies. Dozens of them every season, cute little fuckers that ate like a garbage truck including everything in your vegetable garden. And the flowers from your garden because they were too stupid to understand that flowers aren't edible, they don't taste good. Or maybe they did just as a game, to see who could piss people the most.

There was a coyote. As coyote's go, they're not particularly popular or cute, and neither was this one. It too had babies to feed. And the babies howled in the forest all the time because they were hungry.

It was lucky for the coyote's family that somehow the rabbits had multiplied so well, because they were running, walking snacks and meals, plus toys for children. And also gym for growing young adult coyotes. No need to hunt for the puny squirrel or the random rat anymore, rats were dangerous, they had sharp teeth and claws, they were wily and having lived with humans had learned the cunning of those creatures. Honestly the coyote was quite afraid of those beings though of course he wouldn't admit that in front of company, he'd even go as far as claiming that he loved feasting on rats because of such and such reasons and oh what a wonderful sport it was to hunt them, his ideal post-retirement life would involve unlimited rat-hunting my the beachside preferably in Southern Europe but he'd heard that the housing prices there had been going up because of all the 'digital nomad' Americans who were moving there, so he'd be fine with a good piece of property in Latin America, Mexico even, as long as the place was safe and affordable and there were enough rats around.

One day the coyote and his pack discovered the rabbit family. They essentially committed genocide against the clan and attacked and fed on most of them. Yum yum yum. They didn't go hunting for the next two weeks as they kept feeding on the remains, good times were had by everyone. The coyotes, obviously, but also humans who were not bothered by those rabbits in those garden. And, surprisingly, other rabbits because how they had larger grazing grounds to feed on sunflowers and tomatoes and what not. Since they coyotes had been well-fed, they didn't have to worry about being on the run all the time anymore.

Okay so which of you jokers gave my email to I am naughty dot com which is a spam extortion virus infested weird place probably

 This will be quick, some joker gave my primary email to a really spammy crappy company and now I've been getting spammed nonstop with their bs email campaigns. At first it was really exciting because Gmail is so good with spam protection there's barely any spam problem but yeah after reading the emails they're no better than you traditional penis enlargement ad, except it targets dare I say the more emotionally vulnerable with potential of love and finding a life full of happiness and kindness and fulfillment but there's only scammers on the other side of the table, you know.

Anyway, I didn't click on any of the links because I'm not stupid and they still keep sending the emails which go straight to my junk folder. Google will eventually figure out that this is undesired behavior and kick them out of the entire ecosystem, but until then it's like having a weird little puppy thing creature around, that you know has to go soon also it bites and can kill you also rob you out of every penny but you do feel a little sad seeing it go even though you realize it's an automated system that has no heart or feelings or anything as such.

20 things, just because

1. Meditation
2. Prayer
3. Sports
4. Dogs
5. Food
6. Pinays
7. That cutie who lives by the highway
8. Parks and walking, generally
9. writing
10. dairy products for some reason
11. massive spaceship, probably
12. yoga groups
13. Cooking classes
14. "diy apartment biogas digester (made cheaply)"
15. various off brand versions of kindle
16. people not taking their meds
17. shopping, please
18. mustache
19. popular science books
20. earbuds with batteries that last for a long time

A little bit of self (and other) deception hurt nobody, hey!

As has been the trend for posts in these pages, the contents of this post are going to be quite embarrassing and humiliating a little bit, but we're over that phase and one needs to put in the hours and commitment into writing something, and this is an honest statement of one's internal mental state so here we go. It's possible I've written on this before.

It appears that the lack of availability one one's part socially gives one the confidence to do things one might otherwise not have, and makes one desirable to certain kinds of folks more so than the baseline would otherwise have been. I discovered this (it's been a known fact for at least 2k years) through the situation with AR(e). So now there's the possibility of convincing oneself that there's nothing to worry about, there's a set situation out there in the West and nothing's going to be wrong and dancing with strangers and hanging out with them after in the park and going to get hodogs (not a big fan as I've previously said) could be just friendly behavior from an extraordinary nice and kind person than something interesting and wild, you know? Why does everything have to mean something, and why can't you just linger in the grayzone with people you don't even know too well, all you know about them is the sort of music they will dance to, the eagerness of theirs to dance to music and meet strangers and talk to them, and uh that's it, maybe you have a vague sense of idea about the sort of friends they hang out with on weekend events.

So it's self-deceptin' time? Is it possible? Something worth considering?

The good news is I'm training, the bad news is my legs hurt like hellll

As I wrote yesterday, I did 36k steps, 14.5 ish miles, read a lot and was generally exxtra productive. But now my legs hurt like helll. And by legs I mean my thighs. Which you could interpret as good news, because knee pains are much worse, and that phase is done, suggesting either that knees have trained to walk a lot or that it was a random scenario that I'll never encounter again. 

The idea is to do a solid amount of walking today, and possibly for ever from now on, but the thigh situation may be an impediment there. What I am excited about is the possibility of doing 30k steps daily, what if it was just 3 hours of daily walking that could get me there, and then 2.5 hours, and finally 2 hours eventually when I get my pace to fast to quick? The legs wouldn't hurt anymore, 2 hours is not awful, and man what an exercise that be! Okay so after doing a quick search of the interwebs  I see that doing 13 miles in 2 hours would be...pretty challenging, considering an average person does 3-4 miles, I'd have to be doing almost twice of that, and while the training has gotten me to become a faster walker than your average person, setting up such aggressive goals would be setting oneself for disappointment. Guess I could walk for an hour in the morning and two in the evening, that could work. Still, 30k steps, every day or so, what a wonderful prospect, and a 50k walk every day, my senses tingle at the mere possibility. For reference, 10k is 5 miles, so 50k would be about uh 25 miles, at the average rate of lets say you know five miles an hour, that's still ten hours.With a planned 20% improvement I could get it down to 8 hours, but man that's like 6am-10am and 5pm-9pm on the weeks. Which is not too bad, truth be told, walking with friends or podcasts is fun, but it is intimidating, a little bit.

And I do wonder, if this sort of semi-casual walking is good training for the PCT, or if there needs to be more targeted training done. Huhmmm.

My new Asian cuisine fastfood invention that'll take the world by storm

Here's what you do.

Make homemade kefir. Or storebought, whatever. Gotta be sour though.

You also need: chickpeas, cooked. onions, garlic, ginger, dried red chilli, whatever spices you want to put in your Nepali kadhi. frozen spinach. fresh works too I guess.

That was for the vegetarian filling.

You also need: eggs, chinese chilli oil with flakes, green onions, kimchi maybe if you want to go on an interesting healthy ride, mozzarella cheese, smoked gouda cheese,

That was for the addons.

For the base you need the malabari paratha from trader joe's.

To make the vegetarian filling:
Start with onions, after they start sweating put in garlic and ginger, don't burn the garlic. Also put in any kadhi spices you are comfortable with. It's also a good time to dump salt to taste. And then the dried red chilli, tear 'em apart and drop em in for flavor. Then clear the water out of chickpeas and dunp them in. Smosh them so they're not whole, but we're also not going to make hummus here. After the chickpeas have gotten a bit smooshed, add a good amount of sour kefir. If you are weirded about white food, dump red or yellow spices such as saffron or tumeric, to taste and color. Let the kefir and the spices and the chickpeas get to know each other in the pot. A few minutes. Now dump a good amount of spinach, frozen fresh whatever. It depends how irony/green you want to make your filling, I didn't put a great amount, but a good amount in. Cook until the liquid's mostly boiled off.

On a separate pan, start warming the malabari paratha. It needs to be a large pan because we don't want to waste dishes for no good reason. As one side is heading, take two eggs, dump the on the other side of the pan (maybe with some fat, of your choosing), and scramble em up, quick quick quick. Doesn't need to be perfect. Take them out before they're fully solid and cooked. We'll cook them later.

In the remaining part of the pan, dump the solids of your vegetarian filling and let them sweat out the liquid.

Turn the malabari paratha. At this point, the other side's not fully brown but getting there.

For the base of the roti, start with mozzarella cheese. Dump to your heart's desire. Don't need to be grated at all. Avoid too thick of a slice, because it won't melt well. Then the smoked gouda, because why not. Then comes the mixture of eggs and chickpea kadhi that you just headed on pan. Then dump some chilli flakes, green onions, kimchi if you want. Or actually maybe dump them before the veggies and eggs. Or not. Up to you. You can also mix everything up right on top of the roti because why not. The stringy cheese will help everything hold together and be less messy when eating that way.

Now, here's the fun part, turn one side up and fold the roti right in the pan, and make it look like a taco. Let it cook for a few minutes until the bottom is a it crunchy. Then turn the roti around (it's pretty big and heavy at this point, so use two utensils, don't worry about the contents falling out, they won't), and let the other side crisp up a bit too.

After both sides are crispy, take the taco out, and eat as hand food, though have a spoon ready cos things could get messy. Or maybe cut into smaller bites and gulp them whole, why not.

I've eaten this maybe five to seven possibly nine times, and as I've written previously on this blog, am willing to pay up to seven bucks as a pan-asian fast food. So filling, so yummy, it's awesome!

The community eventually forms, just keep doing the things you love doing

Something incredibly random strange embarrassing and weird maybe a little bit but also nice and encouraging, fun of course and exciting in ways that make one funny in that deep part of your hard that you can never really reach or do anything to but you feel the feels is that it's come to notice that -- it's incredibly obvious so don't get your hope up folks -- the more you walk around, the harder you work the more people you see and talk to and generally the more you're loving the shit you enjoy doing, the more people you meet who're interested in talking to you and you know have a good time in your presence. That's a strange thing to say out of random and really there's no context, no exciting occasion where I was accosted by far too many attractive women and had to make a quick escape from the uh back door, question mark no pun intended, just a normal general observation by looking at other randos who I've been observing and who I've noticed observing me because we live in the same neighborhood and go to the same stores, have similar walking hours all of that. It's a community I guess, though in an atomized -- nay, nuclearized -- society like here, it's tough to make friends or groups because everybody is out for themselves. But eventually things coagulate, agglomerate, combine to form bigger units, maybe slower than they did back in the day, but things are happening, physical and chemical reactions but with people as basic units and uhh interesting things can come off such interactions, that's all i'm sayin'. A lot of chemical interactions are exothermic too! Does that hold over to the other metaphor? Who knows! Still, something worth thinking about.

New walking record set, and the day is not even done yet!

 Here's the deal. I have walked 32k thousands steps today. Which equates to slightly more than twelve miles, which equates to a little more than hm, let's see, sixteen plus 3.2 miles which gets us closer to 19.5 kilometres. And the day is not done yet, we're going to be out and about in thirty minutes, probably going to involve some jumping around (one hopes) so I could be up by a few hundos or thou by that time. Since I started keeping track a year ago of my daily step count, this is by far the most I've walked. It's not even a hiking day or one of those special occasions, just another productive day in a big city, and I'm fuckin' lovin it. It means that I've sort of smoothed out the average for the week to make up for the two days of the week where I lets say...underperformed... in terms of walking. Makes me feel incredibly accomplished. Also, a realization has dawned upon me. Getting up to 50k steps a day, which would be maybe 25ish mile (aka 40 freakin' kilometres) would not be a big deal at all if things are kept up. Not impossible to do it on a weekly basis, or biweekly at worst if the legs and the legs are not up for it.

What a great practice this is for the PCT, I'm super duper excited. Here's to hoping that I keep this trend of reaching new heights and records of walking, all as a practice for my through hike across the country, and am able to keep increasing until I can do a hundo k steps as a matter of not-a-big-deal. Just chill and hundred k. Food and water prepared, keep walking. What a life that would be. Imagine being somebody doing that on a...hmm maybe not on a weekly basis because I don't feel like walking at 6am until midnight every saturday or sunday but maybe every week. Yikes. All the good emotions and vibes and hormones I'd get from that. So horny for those horny-mones, honh honh, that's a hormone pun folks.

Yeah, thank you all for the accolades, I tried hard, got here and do even better and make you prouder as the days go by!

Eggless roti taco lunch so heavy, finished the watermelon finally, new phone arrives and possibly disappoints, hang and volunteer walk with Bc and Ruby, Poquitos dinner and flan, home writing [Fri 29]

This is for today.

Work was meh, so many disappointments, manager is going so high I'll get a new manager which is a cause for concern and worries but we've worked through rougher things before.

For lunch I made the same roti-tarkari-cheese thing without the eggs because I was finished with my 18-pak and this time around I added so much veggies, so much cheese, and whole lotta chilly oil and green onions and also three different kinds of cheeses. And two rotis, one on top and one bottom, and cut it like one of those mexican dishes. Haven't finished all of it yet as I write this the same evening, it was a success I'd say it terms of work to output ratio. And the taste is yummy as always. Also ate and finished my massive fifteen-pounder watermelon. It took me 12 days but I did it! It is what has kept me alive in these wild recordbreaking heatwave days.

In the afternoon, phone arrived right into my door with the UPS guy knocking and getting my signature, so fancy that's never happened to me before, kinda confused what was happening. I'm not sure if I want to keep it but I just changed a setting and maybe it's worth keeping around because with my old phone returned it will only have cost me net 200 bucks before the screen protector and cover, which is maybe fifty bucks more but if I can take this new phone for three years -- like I did with my last phone, that means it'll come to a cost of less than 7 bucks a month which is like really great price point. If I don't destroy it within those three years I can keep it and buy a brand-new one without returning it, given it doesn't give me other problems.

In the afternoon I wrote a little bit, used a whole lotta internet, and hungout with old friend BC and ruby. Walked with them to Volunteer park, getting caught up on everything getting her caught up to everything, discussing our mutual adoration and love for pinay girls etcetera. We got dinner at Poquitos which is a pretty nice mexican place near my apartment, I only got flan, we split the bill.

Walked with the girls down 12th ave for a while because I wanted to get my steps in, made plans to meet again Sunday and possibly Monday, walked back, chilled in the fan, tried to motivate myself to write, did some research on Nepali folk mythology couldn't find anything and just wrote the journal posts, nothing as boring as that.

With this I'll need to write for 'today's worth of posts tomorrow, 12 posts over the next two days which is a very sustainable rate, specially if I can get myself to do more of the fiction series. This could be good.

Productive workday, massive roti-egg etcetera taco for lunch, interlaken-volunteer loop with concert, yummy dinner with the gang at Belltown, bhat dal tarkari, weekend plans, driven back [Thu 28]

 Workday was pretty productive, I finally got the thing I'd been promising for the past three months done, except it was broken but wins are wins and one has got to take anything one's offered by the cruel cruel gods of amazon.

Lunch was a massive roti-egg-tarkari-chilli oil etc taco for lunch, man I'm really liking this, it could be a great fast food, I would buy it for a solid seven bucks, would cost one fifty maybe to cook just for the raw ingredients. It would be asian-fusion fast food taco and could gain massive popularity around the country, not even kidding.

In the evening went on the standard volunteer-interlaken loop, saw the thursdays concert. Came back home, quick shower, I was pleased how organized the shower was, and also the fact that I'm mentioning showers again means that I'm so 'caught up' jeez. Then quick spray of moi new spray, carried the pound chocolate and kefir, went to the guys' place on the outside, we walked a few blocks and got the gig and drove to belltown. On the way got caught up with AKS(y) who recently returned from Minneapolis, and his soccer trip in Wisconsin, his gymming, meeting people etcetera.

The girls had made really good dal bhat, spent a couple of hours in the apartment, went upstairs to chill and grill meat, back down to eat, back up to hang for a while, and as I nagged the boys that it was time, we left around quarter to twelve, maybe a bit later. They left me in front of my house fortunately. Made plans with the girls for Sunday (shopping!) and Saturday (potential Indian festival? we shall see!).

Didn't get writing done at all really, not in the evening, but in the day man, I've been writing that Minister storyline and really loving it, want to see where it goes next because it could turn out to be a pretty decent novel or series. Just need to keep expanding hah. It's just the motivation. Three hours a day for thirty days and I kid you not i'll be a novelist, an amateur possibly self-published one but a novelist regardless.

Roti-egg-cheese-tarkari-onion pizza for lunch, volunteer-interlaken walk, tired but recovering [Wed 27]

 It was the hangover day, ugh, the sort of day I hate myself during, absolutely loathe myself, and find myself in a depressive mood. Not a good day, awful time, alcohol sucks, it's very harmful for one's mental wellbeing, this is the sort of day that's hard evidence for that.

For lunch I had roti egg tarkari, cheese and green onion thing, it was pretty decent and I'd have it for the next several days. At least it gave me energy to carry on. Also lots and lots of watermelon because the heat's been bad, so awful, energy draining, doesn't make one want to do anything cook anything eat anything.

In the evening I gathered enough energy to do the volunteer-interlaken circuit, getting my 10k steps I think, maybe I missed it by 1 minute and 50 steps but I was very close, and so bummed that I'd just wasted the previous day on drinking and breaking my 2-week streak. Alcohol has never worked out well for me, I don't understand why I keep going back to the toxic relationship, realize that it happens once or twice a year at most but even then it's awful and I'm always the loser.

By the end of the day I was exhausted and sleepy and not yet feeling fully myself but the walk helped me recover quite well.

Busride to work, meeting coworkers, the future, donuts and cookies and hot choco, meeting new people, happy hour and friends, gloomy night, blacked out early [Tue 26]

In the morning worked for a few hours from home, super productive day by the way, and then took the bus to work, it was a free public transport day apparently.

It was so good to see so many coworkers at the same place, meeting, talking, working on the white boards and having standup. Reminded me what it felt to work at a real workplace, what having coworkers is, what human contact is, and oh god how dearly I miss all of it, I want it all back, so so hard. Remote work is great when you're feeling lazy but not so nice when you miss human interaction and voice of another person to talk to and tease and generally have a good time. So much knowledge is siloed this way. Ugh, wish there was an easier way. I think for my next job I'll find a place that requires at least a few days of mandated office days because the current way isn't really working out for me. I think that's going to be future of working, IRL working.

Had a couple of donuts, dipped into hot chocolate, yum yum what a life what a life, such luxury. Also had a massive cookie from the sandwich place, unfortunately nobody brought a veggie sandwich so I mostly had sugar during the course of the day, this is going to be important later.

After work (aka 2PM) we headed up to Optimish brewery near where I live, again on the 'free' bus. Talked to a bunch of people, discovered couple of them I shared so many things with including Arabic courses, and going to the same college back in the day. Ordered a sampler which was 6 beers of 4oz and all the sours were so good, the IPA I didn't enjoy so much. Got a second round of beer, 16 ounces probably, which meant I was on 3, 3.25 beers. Enough to be annoying, but it was time to leave, and all the coworkers went out to get dinner or whatever, I didn't feel like it so I returned home.

On the way up I saw the cute neighbor from downstairs inviting her friend with child over, it was cute, also the first time a child was seen in my apartment. Did some pretty stupid things, cried a bunch and bawled by eyes out for no good reason other than being drunk. Blacked out early by 6/6.15. I gotta stop making stupid decisions.

Roti with kefir veggies lunch, interlaken volunteer circuit, breakfast for dinner, I write a lot, cologne comes in [Mon 25]

For lunch I had the kefir veggie I'd made earlier with chickpeas and spinach. Hope I've written about that because gosh it's not done yet.

In the afternoon I received the cologne package, two nice-smelling bottles super small but so powerful, it's a ritual and it'll be so great.

In the afternoon I did the classic interlaken volunteer circuit, and wrote a lot, trying to catchup but also generally writing, cos' why not, thing are getting better because I'm respecting them.

Had eggs, vegan sausages and mushrooms for dinner when I thought I might be able to get away by skipping dinner entirely cos I was so goddamn hungry. The mushrooms were oversalted, and used soy-sauce-honey-vinegar sauce for the sausage. Surprisingly good, once you use it after the sausage's cooked.

Walk to SLU, long await, boating!, almost fallen, tired from the sun, catchup with a friend, unexpected hangout, watermelon, friedrice and sadheko doritos dinner [Sun 24]

In the morning I got ready, cooked showered and walked to South Lake Union. As expected I waited for 45 minutes for the rest of the gang to show up, we lined for 30 minutes maybe before it was our turn. I took the paddleboard, for the first time. It was quite an experience.

The good news was I didn't drop into water and die. Or drop into water at all. The ok-ish news was I did fall down from a standing position to sitting position. And it took me a while to get the directions right, considering it was incredibly windy and choppy, I lost touch with the rest of my group. As a result I boarded all the way to SLU proper, checked if anybody I knew was there, and boarded back, ending my ride 20 minutes before it should have ended. Then waited for another hour to wait for everybody else to finish.

Got super tired but AR(e) kindly offered to drop in our neighborhood, on the way I saw Sk so stopped the car and ran after him, for twenty minutes because turns out he walks pretty fast. Finally got caught up and handled the doggo while he got groceries. Hung out in his place for a couple of hours before calling it a night. Conversation started really souring when he started making p-adjacent things that should get people in trouble.

I thought i wasn't really hungry. Then I ate like half a watermelon. Thought that'd be it. Then I ate all the leftover friedrice from the day before. Figured that'd be the end of my hunger. Nope. Chopped up onion garlic green onions ginger, mustard oil etc and crunched up doritos plus kefir and made doritos sadheko too. Because why not. Tomatoes obviously. It felt healthy okaaay?

Fried rice, eggs and kefir lunch, interlaken-volunteer circuit, latenight cravings for doritos, midnight park hang [Sat 23]

 For lunch I made solid fried rice with lotsa Asian things and it was yummy, even yummier cold in the vening. Had kefir and eggs with the fried rice, furikake spread on the top, it was incredible. I need to be eating more of lesser-cooked eggs.

In the evening did my standard interlaken-volunteer circuit, pushing myself to walk as fast as I could, after writing a lot. In the evening I had this incredible craving for doritos so went to QFC at 11.45, got doritos ate 'em in the park, and chilled at the park for about half hour before coming home. It was pretty nice, the 'block party' would end in one day, exciting times.

At this point I guess I must explain that through the course of this weekend there was this thing such as the 'block party' which was a music festival happening in our neighborhood which meant lots of noise, many outsiders, lots of litter and so many streets closed. And then gangs of roving drunk people noising around late at night, disturbing me from getting my beauty sleep. Ugh.

SO sleep this weekend was less than ideal.

Golfing in the heat with the new bro, improvements, end of eggplant sandiwch, grinder and blanket arrive, short evening hang with surprise return from mx [Fri 22]

 I write this (and the following 7 of the series) exactly a week after this day, which is a little unfortunate as I promised to treat this with more respect and reverence, and that will stay, but the journals are the easiest and so get sent by the wayside until it must absolutely be done. I read somewhere that in more than three days you lose total memory of what happened during the day even with photo evidence, which I buy completely.

After finishing work, chilled for a bit, napped for sometime, and headed to the UW Golf Course. Hit a couple of dozen balls (total of 200 balls between the two of us). My shots using the driver are more accurate as in I hit the ball now but they're awful because I never used the tee. It's an improvement still, and that's what we're here for, making ourselves better.

It's unclear at what point I ate the eggplant sandwich, likely before I left for UW, but I finished the eggplant from before in my second meal, that was easily done, gotta thank myself, it was yummy but no more honey flour and high temperature anymore.

During the day the blanket and grinder I'd ordered arrived, so I was fully prepared to cook and picnic.

After the golf session, chilled at home for a bit, walked around generally, went to see AKS(e) who had recently come back from Mx, spent like an hour at his roof and got home. It was weird as has been the case in recent times and of course there's the situation I approve of very little.

But it's also good to go out sometimes

But sometimes,
Not even at night,
And not for getting boozed
Or even for social butterflying
One wants to take the neck out
And see the world,
From a different angle, a dangerous one
But with a separate perspective,
It doesn't always help,
But when you can get out
And be somebody else
Just for a short while
While still comfortably yourself
First,
You appreciate your being, always
And also,
You understand how different flowers
Make a garden,
Not just the most colorful ones,
Seasons change, blooms change
And you understand a flower
In one season is a different
Entity in another
And aren't we all
Just tiny little flowers
Looking for water
And the fertilizer
That is
Love?
So much love.
So go, go out into the world
And help a thousand flowers bloom
Beaming, shining, bright
Confident
Of their ability to touch the sky
And even when they don't,
You will see how precious they are,
And what a precious flower,
Your existence is,
My little flower.

When you learn to be yourself comfortably

It's friday night,
I'm in my room
In front of the fan,
Man,
I tell you
I'm having a good time.
I hear the loud ruckus
Downstairs
And all I think
Is
I am
So glad
I'm not going
To be hungover
Tomorrow morning.
That I will still have
The energy to go out
And live my life,
Learn the trades
And the arts
And sports
As my
Heart
wants
Without
Feeling like
Shit
Later in the day.
A weekend without torture
And loathing
In my own
Sweet sweet terms,
What a wonderful price
To pay for not jumping around
Desperate, sad, pathetic, not great.

And the root of all this is,
Ya gotta discover
What you like
And be
Okay
With the
Sort of person
You are, ready to
Fight for the right
TO be you, outrageously
So, it's not just about you,
It's your future and your sanity
You deserve happiness, this is a
Fight that will give returns multiple
Times over.
Trust me brother.
Find who you are
And be the best version of it.

Going to office more regularly in the summer AND in the winter might be a good idea actually

 It's been very very hot as of late, incredibly unbelievably so actually, going out in the afternoon is hard, even to cook means I'm sweating litres and liters of liquid out of my body every hour, my appetite has died at this point and without the air conditioning I'm a slowcooking hunk of meet, no doubt.

There's a solution. If I go to my office more regularly, that means I'll get air conditioning. I'll get free teas and nice working environment. Means I won't get opportunity to waste time in random shit at my house. Won't get time to nap. Won't get time to 'work' but actually just watch youtube etcetera. No matter what, I'll get my order in place, and that's going to be worth the effort of walking the distance carrying two laptops. In the afternoon I can go from their straight to the library, do my readings and other writing work, head out for a walk, and come back int he evening, to cook dinner, and breakfast/lunch for the next day, only to start the whole cycle again.

That sounds wonderful actually.

The sisyphean tale is a misdirect, would Sisyphus have complained if his boulder-pusher was an automated machine with air conditioning? Would he not have had a remarkably rewarding life if at the end of every work day he came home to write his new novel, or poem or make a vlog, knowing fully that tomorrow was just as predictable as today, and just as miserably, not much more? Would life not be simpler? How is it torture for him, and how is that even an existential question. It's about the circumstances, you could give his terrible circumstances to the happiest, most exciting occupation in the world and their existence would be no less miserable. My circumstances are great, and therefore I must leverage them into happiness.

In the winter I get heater during the chilly mornings and early noons, since afternoon is already warm I can come hope to enjoy the awesome weather.

Meditation and prayer are the key to getting things under control, that much is clear

 I write this in utter shame, as I've not meditated for five days, possibly six after having a pretty much uninterrupted string of a few months worth of praying and related meditation.

This is a reminder to myself, I cannot get away from prayer and meditation, they can be spiritual or agnostic or atheistic or religious of any kind, but they have to exist, I must surrender to a higher power, must show reverence and respect, and be at the mercy of somebody way, way beyond my comprehension understanding and level of existence and consciousness. Only then will I have the humility to understand that I don't matter, that my mistakes are nothing in the big picture, but also that I have a loving, kind generous, understanding, all-forgiving entity watching out for me, and with her blessing only success will come my way.

<3

I must meditate. I must pray.  I must write. There is no other way.

Heatwave, once again, is kiling us all

 Seattle weather has gotten out of control.

The past week saw almost every day get hotter than 32C in its hottest, which is quite insane for a city generally known for being chilly and cold. The fact that there's no AC in most of the older buildings -- including mine -- only adds to the pain. The heatwaves have become the accepted part of weather pattern, and what was once once-in-alifetime or once-a-decade event is becoming an annual thing. This cannot last.

It's come to such absurd scenario that I'm now missing the rain and the gloomy weather of the city, because if it just rained the temperatures would go down and we'd get some relief from the killer heat. But the rainclouds are nowhere to be seen, I don't think it's rained in the last two months, when we needed rain the most. Such a disappointing occasion.

Why alcohol is my least favourite substance, aka it sucks and I never wanna do it again

Alcohol sucks, it's not great, it makes my body tired after drinking it, I never have enough fun while drinking it, and my mind goes in a deeply distressed and self-loathing the next few days after drinking. It's very difficult to drink it in limited quantities, and not only because I get drunk in two drinks of beer, and by three I'm ready to black out. And mind you, any amount of beer, even a bottle of it, will make my body lethargic the following day.

It's been decided then, the only safe, healthy, and manageable way to deal with alcohol and consume it without creating body harm to the self is to only drink in extreme limited amounts, and drink only the booze that I make myself. That way the booze is always in short supply, I have a very good sense of how heavy it is, and I can never overindulge. That's the success to a healthy relationship with booze.

I don't find weed pleasant, haven't bought any in a long time, but man everytime I drink alcohol it reminds me that there's much much worse substances out there, even socially acceptable ones, that were it not for the culture, would have caused much outrage in the community.

Ministerial arrangements

 Continued from here. Is this a story? A novel seed? Who knows. I might have to serialize it if I see any potential.

That evening I set up an audience with Madam. She had a couple of women from the neighborhood coming in for dinner with their daughters, and I was invited. The dinner was uneventful, except for the girls' attempts to make conversation, that sort of attention I didn't have much experience dealing with.

As the dinner ended and the guests were helped to their feet by the servants, I informed Madam that I had an important topic to discuss. She said she was all ears. We sat by the informal dining room next to the kitchen, the servants were dismissed until they were called, and I narrated the conversation I had had earlier in the day without explaining the source. Ma'am, I said, I have known you from before you were married to the Minister, and the minister has known be from even before his MP days, when he was still  a scientist trying to make a big name for himself in the country. I don't know if he has told you this, but I was the one who gave the idea to him to propose new arm manufacturing inside the country, with his skills and the group he could easily do so, I told him. For somebody to suggest that I might be at his throat his a huge disrespect for all the parties involved, and I would be unable to show my face to him or you if the situation continues, I said.

Silence.

Neither of us spoke for what seemed like an hour. I had nothing left to say. She needed to acknowledge the situation and free me from the grip of social awkwardness.

It is not that I haven't heard some of those rumors, she began. It is quite unfortunate for you to be in this awkward position, and both of us feel bad for you, truly. However, as it happens, this sort of rumor swirling around the town is...good for us. I don't want to go into details, but your Sir is involved in various other activities, and this rumor-mongering is actually helping take a lot of pressure of our shoulders. He says he has been the most relaxed in a year now that these rumors are spreading about...all of this. In fact, we are responsible for spreading some of the rumors ourselves, and as you can see it has worked out quite well, everybody just assumes it to be true. Because they only see conspiracies, they're blind enough to not see layers of conspiracies. They cannot comprehend that if you layer large lies with much spicier lies, the important lies get left in the wayside, and people think that they're the distraction away from the spicy lies. Nobody even cares about the truth anymore, because all they want is drama, excitement. So by setting up the current situation, we have protected ourselves for some time, she said.

I was lost for words, all I could say was, I hope he is not in a situation where he needs to be worried.

Oh don't you worry about that, she said, we have the military and police protecting us. Even beyond that, we have our own external security resources who won't let suspicious parties get even close to us, the sort of people we need to worry about. No, what we need right now is some sort of buffer from the public, and parliamentarians, so you can imagine this rumormongering takes their attention away. I'm terribly sorry that you have unintentionally been a part of this situation, this was not the goal, but it evolved to become one, and we didn't really quash what they were saying, because it was so goddamn useful.

Silence.

I was having trouble making words come out of my throat. "What...what should I do next," I said.

She began. It would be very kind of you, a great favor we hope to greatly repay one day, if you stayed, and acted like you were not aware of the circumstances, and didn't acknowledge it. We will make sure you are cared for well, and you have been getting quite the attention from the local girls too. If it suits your purpose, you should get a girlfriend, I can tell you about the girls. Even if for one or two weeks, that might be able to distract you. And while you are here, I'll arrange for all your travel needs, on us. Go to the mountains, go down south and see the wild animals, go to the water, go east and west. Go to South East Asia, all over, as our guest. I'll see if there's a way for us to get you a diplomatic visa, so you can travel like a true VIP. This is obviously nothing in comparison for all the pain and awkwardness we are putting you through, and our eventual repayment will be a thousandfold better, but for right now, that is what would be the best for us. A week there, and a week back here, so on and so forth. Just enough that it seems suspicious enough, but not too disinterested. We'll give you an aide-de-camp too for when you're going out of town, they'll arrange for all the logistics, you just tell them the name of the town, and the dates, they'll take care of all other details. Again, it is generally not how we treat guests, and this is a very unfortunate situation, and your assistance would be very much appreciated by both of us.

I nodded, a low soft grunt, looking at the floor. It was time for bed.

Revelations about the ministerial situation

Continued from here. I don't know where this is going, but you know if it's anything good it'll get it's own tags.

My position in the ministerial compound had gone up considerably between the two trips. I was being saluted to more regularly, the servants were more proactive about my wants, my little place of stay had been made to look like a proper apartment. Strangest of all, the ministerial daughters seemed to show a renewed interest in me. Something was up, and I needed to understand that quickly.

During a dinner outing to the Minister's goon's place, where I'd innocently wondered if her boss had been the murderer of the Minister's mistress, I made sure my hosts were reasonably imbibed before asking her in private, what had changed. When I came here first, everybody treated me like the inspector, like everybody else, and it got me into so many places, now even all the daughters of ministers in the compound want my phone number and what not, what is it that they're talking about me?

Oh, you don't know, she asked, herself quite puzzled.

I don't know, I don't know what? That I'm a nobody with no official position anywhere. That my fulltime job is to travel and write here and thee but mostly to live on my savings. That I can't possibly have any job or involvement in any matters of interest that would earn me any respect of this sort? There is a big misunderstanding happening and I don't mind it but I need to understand it fully if I don't want my cover blown, I said.

Oh, okay, she said, in hushed tone, slow with her words, as if she was choosing them very carefully, an act new to her. So they are saying, that the Minister will not be appearing in public or private except in big public events where his attendance is required, or in the cabinet government work you know, because he is afraid of somebody or something. And despite being the defence minister of the country, he is not confident about his safety from those people. Now everybody started thinking who or what it might be, their first thought was our boss but he is peanuts, the armypolice in the compound is enough to turn his entire group into peanuts, that is nothing. Then they saw you and the other person staying in the guest house, and since you were talking to everybody, learning everything, figuring out all the inner secrets and what not, they thought maybe you are the thing that is scaring him from coming back. Because why would he, such a big man, host you for so long and let you live in it like its your own? And haven't you noticed, ever since you came at first, the minister's not appeared ever again? So now everyone believes that you are backed by forces that are powerful enough to scare the defense minister of this country into hiding, and therefore are not to be trifled with. That and the fact that you are so down-to-earth and easy to get along with has made people think that maybe...maybe...her voice wandered away.

Maybe what, tell me already, I said, in a tone rather foreign to me.

They're saying that the Minister is making arrangements for you to be in the party, and eventually replace him when he's forced to resign, and that you will become the next defence minister. It's not just that you have big guns behind your back, everyone is saying that you're going to have much bigger guns soon.

Huuuuhh, I said, taking a moment to gather my thoughts. This was the strangest collection of words I'd heard, or even imagined. The idiots had taken 2 and 2 and turned it into twenty-two billion somehow. And what do you think of all of this, I asked her.

Oh what am I but a low level goon, I don't believe any of it, I've met you and talked to you I don't think any of this is true, you don't have the head or the stomach for politics. She paused. Buuut. If there were forces backing you against the Minister, such that you might end up in his place in the future, I would very much like to be availed of my current situation, and stay in the good books from you. Not that I'm saying this is what will happen but there is a chance for anything happening, and if everyone says this is what might happen you have to at least give it a serious thought.

That...doesn't make any sense, now that I think about it, I said. Why would the Minister's wife give me so much accommodation, why would he treat me like a beloved guest if he was afraid of me, none of this is even plausible, you're a bunch of fools, a country of total duffers and idiot, you whole lot! How stupid do you have to believe all this nonsense, I said, noticing my voice was rising in pitch and volume

Ohh brother, listen, you're new here so I'll explain it to you. Maybe you are the real duffer, think about it. The minister is a big man, you know how many jobs we have done for him, how much money we've made for him? Even if it is in the dark of night or whenever, he has never offered us to stay in the guest house, not once in his parties ever. And you are always talking about meeting him here and there. And all the respect from everybody in the household, maybe the madam doesn't know it, she doesn't know anything anyway. Maybe you don't know anything either. I don't know what your business is or what industry you are in but to me you don't look very different from us all. You are clean and you speak english and spend time in all the foreign lands, but how are you so closely associated with this man huh? And why has he shown such an affection for you all this time? And if he cared for you so much, could he not have come to stay in his house for just one single day to say hi and send you your way instead of paying for your ration and your demands for so long, like you are the king of the house? You are the stupid one, what exactly do you think is happening here, what do you think your business is, or do you think we are so stupid we don't understand there's something else going on with you, something suspicious. This is country brother, the public knows everything!

Rumors in Brussels and coming back to Ministerial compound

Continued from here. In case I write a few more pieces, I need to have this be it's own series.

My stay in Brussels was a welcome reprieve from the heat humidity and dust of the preceding months. I visited family for personal celebration, to the Hague, quick jaunt down to Geneva to catchup with old business pals, my mind was set in settling down in Brussels for a while. The days were cool enough to explore the city during the day, the evenings were for writing and personal communications, the nights for lovely dinners and parties. Not that Brussels was a particularly popular party pad, during the weekdays they were intimate, the weekends were a bit more rough but nothing that would compare to Berlin. It was chill.

I have realized during the course of my travels and stays that despite not being a specially curious person, people like telling me things. And they won't begin with the disclaimer to not to share it with anybody else or that it's a big secret, they don't take me seriously and can't comprehend the circumstances under which anything they tell me would get out. They're free-flowing with the secrets, even when they're aware I'm in good terms with the person they're telling me about.

Hanging out with my community in Brussels is how I discovered that the death of the mistress was a much larger deal than it had been made out. Talks of interpol agents already having landed in the country and using their informers inside the police and armed forces were abound. Turns out she was rumored to have been connected to more than one foreign arms dealer, and also intelligence service, a fact that the Minister was aware of but had chosen to ignore to continue his dalliances. "Even if they believe we're acquiring the weapons systems due to her, they can't be so stupid to believe that I'm the only person concerned. There's thirty other people involved in procurement, and if they've provided each and everyone with similar bribes, good for them," he was supposed to have said. The suspicion was that a competing dealer had boffed her out because she was getting too close to success. I didn't buy that, the repercussions of that, if discovered, in their home countries would be large enough that it would wipe away all the gains made during the deal.

As summer turned into Autumn, I missed the potency of the Sun. I checked with the PA who informed me that he was still traveling with only short trips back to the home country to attend important events, but that he had been instructed to tell me that the  Minister would be quite happy if I took back residence at his guest house, it was possible I'd get to meet him soon enough. I packed my bags and two days later I was flying VIP back into the capital. This time there was a small army-police combined retinue, friends I had made from earlier, waiting for me on the tarmac, all of them in their sharp formal dresses and shades. Somebody joked the next time they'd arrange for a cannon salute. I must have looked like quite like an important person, getting my own personal escort from two armed forces outside a commercial flight, and having direct access to immigration and customs! For the first time ever, I felt like a VIP.

The Minister's wife returns

 Continued from here.

We were told Mrs. Minister was arriving in a few days. I had met her a few times, she was an acquaintance's cousin and we had known of each other before she married the Minister. After, during the Ministerial incursions in the various parts of the world I had found myself in the same city, and come for the various state-sponsored dinners as well as the more intimate personal parties. I was perhaps not the most odd one out at those parties, but got pretty close, with my backpacker's vibes and tales of travel across towns and struggles and the adventures I had. Which, how unassuming of me, actually put me in a great place since everybody wanted to listen to my strange tales. I was not a competitor, I was not a spy, I was an outsider who happened to be close to the Minister, which meant they could trust me and open up to me.

The Minister told me on every one of those occasions to find myself a wife, or lacking that a girlfriend even for a few weeks somebody to travel with and have fun with, told me of all the aspiring young women at the parties who'd jump to spend any time with me at a heartbeat. I declined politely, every time, for I had other liaisons I was figuring out. And besides, the girls were just not my type.

My relationship with his Missus was a bit more formal, despite having the other connection. We would talk of our mutual acquaintance and how well they were doing, how many new countries they bought houses in, the travel plans for her, and general information as such. I learned to stop asking them about the children except out of politeness because apparently they'd been accused by the media of using the children as a way to get future citizenship abroad after the job ended eventually.

She surveyed our living quarters the evening of her arrival, and if I may say so, was quite impressed by the changes I'd made. "Madam," I said, "Sir made us wait too long, and I thought if I'll wait this long, I'll impose on the hospitality as much as I can. I have taken perfect photographs of how things were, and the boys from the army and police have promised to help me with getting rid of all the new things at a moment's notice." She laughed a hearty laugh, the likes of which I hadn't seen before, said she didn't mind the updates and was excited I had taken interest in improving my lodgings. "You know, from the day I found you were Shriya's friend, I knew you were a classy guy. Which is why I always reminded him to check if you were around us in our travels, to not forget you. Shriya doesn't hang out with the cheap crowd, you know. We spent some time together in Switzerland, before she got married, and my god, all her friends were like top bankers and what not. So you see it's been a relief having you here, otherwise it's mostly the village people who live here and I would much rather this be a classy intellectual place like you've made it, not some village hovel smelling of dung, hahahaha," she said.

I inquired about when the Minister might be coming back, as all the information I'd received yet had been highly inaccurate. I did have a few obligations I had to meet, and didn't want to miss the Minister in case he appeared on short notice.

"I know as much as you do dear, since you have lived in our place for so long, you are basically our staff now, I can arrange to have you be back at a day's notice in our Airlines if he's back on short notice. But please feel free to make use of our resources, it's good to have you around. And it is not just me, the guards were saying how lucky they were to have an interesting man like you in their midst, they are enjoying your company. And I heard inquiries about your background, they made it sound so innocent and casual, hahaha, from the neighborhood girls too," she said, winking at me, "we are graced with your presence, and would like to have you here for as long as possible, if you do have other urgent tasks to attend, I can arrange roundtrip tickets, from the VIP area, no security etcetera, so just ask," she said.

My stay at the Defence Minister's quarters

 This piece just came to me, in a nap right now.

The security detail to the Home Minister were not particularly happy about his coterie of low-level goons, a surprisingly inclusive group all things considered that included several women who it was known the Minister sought no improper favors from and rather acted as their guardian assuring their security, one of whom had jokingly asked the inspector one time during the duty to teach her to build a bomb. To which the inspector suggested perhaps he should also make them explode at her heart's desire and collect whatever money was to be collected and so on, until it eventually dawned on her that he was not being serious.

When I stayed at his place, for reasons not explained to me by my contacts (the dream was unclear on how I knew the Minister), there was somebody else crashing at the guest house too. Somebody I knew from way back, so we had a good time, organized small parties and what not, so things were going well.

The Minister's missus was abroad -- instead of returning between his two Europe trips, she was bridging the gap by staying over at a relative's in France and traveling abroad -- and the last time I saw the minister, my first night of the stay, there was a big party where a woman in her thirties, so full of energy was the heart and soul of the party. There was no impropriety between her and the Minister, that I could see, but the way everybody seemed to defer to her, and the way his henchpersons couldn't look at him straight in the eye, it was clear that something was up. She was not just any woman.

Turns out I was behind the times.

Two weeks into my stay in the giant palace, I acquired a decent sized piano, and a host of other knicknacks to make my stay in the heat more bearable. I made friends with the security people, his army guards were quite aloof but the local police was more than happy to talk to new people who they didn't also have to worry about taking control of should the situation arise. It was the inspector, who was the main man incharge of securing the compound, who told me the news and provided me with the relevant newspaper page3 report.

The talk of a potential mistress had been all over the papers for weeks, and now the woman was dead.

My compadre in the guest house had made friends with the local operators and I would go visit their houses every so often. Again, it occurred to me that the level of operational security and carelessness they displayed towards a stranger was shocking. As soon as I informed them that I was a guest for a short while, they opened up to me like a romance novel.

These thugs had a very feared leader who didn't look kindly to them skimming from the middle, and his payment and threats of reprisal were not sufficient in those rough economic times. All the money that was being skimmed then didn't go into bank balances or ostentatious display of wealth but in small improvements. A high-end AC system that ran on basically no power nobody would know the true value of, an  expensive foreign air purifier that could be passed off as  a cooler, pricey insulation hidden amongst the cheap looking bales of cotton, those were the kind of things they invested on. Their North Face and Rado looked exactly like the ones belonging to the rest of the neighborhood, but they were genuine. High resale value. Latest gaming consoles and television sets hidden into the bodies of much chunkier older modes.

One evening, one of them, a woman -- a girl, she was no more than 22 and I wondered how she'd found herself in the situation -- whose family we were at dinner for, asked me what I thought about the murder or if I knew anything about it. I was in a pleasant mode, so I said in a conspiratorial tone, to not be overheard, hey I thought it was your other boss's job, and winked. Her face darkened, her mood soured all of a sudden and she didn't talk much to be after. To me that meant either she had the same suspicions and was not happy about it, or that the very mention of her other boss was not something she was happy discussing with me in the open.

The days  moved  by slowly, trickling like an an jar's honey. I taught myself to play decent piano, worked on my stories and books, and went out on long walks around the neighborhood. On the weekends I was accompanied by the security people for they too were interested in seeing what the other ministerial coteries were up to, and it was a whole production, noisy and rowdy. The weekdays were mine alone, on a rare occasion my housemate who had now begun working at an office would join me, but beyond that it was rare to see him outside the house. Not that I believed he worked in an office either, but at least he had someplace to kill time. I hoped that's all he was doing.

During those walks around the colony and beyond, I made a few friends, among them the more rebellious daughters of Ministers and various government bigwigs who came out walk their fluffy dogs. That was the joke in the community, the fluffier the dog, the richer and corrupt the minister. I was made fun of at the start because of my mustache, I looked like a cartoon inspector from the movies. Eventually we connected on shared interests, and they had friends of friends who I knew of in the West, which warmed them up and put me in their grace. Never went to the hangouts they invited me to, I didn't understand the nature of my stay and didn't want to jeopardize it under any circumstances.

The sun's taking mojo out of the best of us

 The problem with the insane heat around you is yes you're sweating like a porkypig and you don't want to do anything or go out and nobody does either and you should technically be glad that there's sun out and about and water's nice and warm to swim and take advantage of the Sun but it's not rained in weeks and months and honestly you do kind of miss the terrible weather of the pacific northwest you realize you would rather have that than this unyielding murderous Sun and more importantly you don't get hungry anymore you have no motivation to do anything because the heat has sapped all the energy and motive and you don't even want to cook despite buying everything you have ever wanted in your kitchen it just feels like cooking is going to only make your AC-less place warmer and more miserable, all for what, to get yourself warm food and not much else, you'd be better off just eating something from the fridge like the kefir you made or fruits or snacks, really anything but the warm food. You'd like to be able to think and at least go on short pleasurable walks during the day but leaving the comfort and safety of one's above before seven or eight in the night is fraught with danger, the air blows only hot loo, there's nothing to be gotten by being beaten to submission by the sun sizzling your skin, not an exaggeration, you can hear it and it's awfully painful when you're recovering back home a few short hours later then you realize for every hour you're out in the sun you actually need to rest two back home because your body needs to repair all cells that died and make sure your brain understands it's not awfully traumatized, that things re alright and actually recoverable.

Then there's the guilt of not interacting with near and dear ones, not writing, not watching anything good or being productive, just sitting in front of the fan trying to make sure you don't pass out of heat and exhaustion, like a base being who's completely surrendered to the whims of mother nature, with not an ounce of control over any variables, really this should have been something that one could have fixed somehow, maybe swamp coolers maybe go to the library or to work where there's ac but we didn't any of those, our choices have come to haunt us and live with them we must, no matter the cost because the sun still beats like a crazy mass-murderer outside, taking thousands of lives in Sourthern Europe and threatening to cause great damage around these parts too. It's not and simple around where we are, but we're not too far off.

This must end, let the winds of winter and misery and snow and rain come back so we may gain back some sanity, we didn't wish upon an asshole genie who misinterprets wishes in the least charitable way and turns them to curses basically, what a terrible idea.

Recession incoming?

Recession. Is it coming? What will it bring? Nobody knows. Everybody claims.

Job's safe. Fairly certain. Visa situation might linger. Market might go down. Houses cheaper? One can hope. Businesses go out. Good. Softbank fails!

Inflation hasn't touched me. Yet. Recession will keep control. Need to control spending. Or travel and outing. Savings for future. Hunker down long-term.

Enough entertainment around. No major concerns. Nepali might be harmed. Political instability possible. All over. Hopefully short-term. Not the first rodeo.

Recovering from a terrible day and night

The heat of the July Sun,
Ain't no match
For how hot you are son,
Is what I tell myself
When I hit a rough patch.

I build myself, a stone at a time,
Brick and mortar, on and on,
And then a storm
Of just two fuckin drinks of beer
And everything is flung apart, torn
And in the tatters I cry in vain,
Tough to love yourself
Tough to self respect gain,
Not after you've blacked out
Confused and lost
Your timetable run afoul,
The plans you built running aground
All you remember
Is so many tears, all the time
Your voice gives away the next day
You sound like a hoarse mime
But I will get back,
You tell yourself
And walk it through
But can you really
Undo
What that deadly liquid
Has taken away from you?

And the most humiliating of all
Is the list of deleted contacts
In your contacts list tall
What happened there, was it a big fall
Or did you do a humiliating act?
How will you ever find out?

The solution is simple
Never to seek help of the bottle
Not even when
Your work is paying for all of it
Don't sample, don't chug
Love yourself, give you one big cuddly hug.

News Report: Rajubabu does NOT get nominated as the party's candidate

Post Report, Aug 28.

In a dramatic turn of events that transpired on Friday, the Nepal Democratic Forum party central bureau member Rajubabu Manandhar, who was expected to get the party's nomination as the candidate running for the upcoming general election, did not make it into the ballot paper due to a delay in filing with the election commission. Sources claim the miss was caused by the updated filing regulations established by the federal government and implemented haphazardly at the last moment.

A source close to Manandhar claimed that the new rules were implemented to stop him from getting the party's nomination. "The central government is fearful about our leader's presence in the parliament, it is clear to all of us that if he wins the nomination, not only is victory guaranteed but he's also likely to be the party's parliamentary chief, and the likely Prime Minister. It is not lost on other parties, specially those in the government that he is hugely popular not just in his constituency but across the country and any coalition that ran the government would be obliged to include him. We have no doubt that the whole situation was orchestrated to stop that, and we will be petitioning against this all the way up to the Supreme Court," the source claimed.

This is not Mr. Manandhar's first trouble with the upcoming election candidacy. The party committee had decided to raise him as the candidate from Siraha-5 after a controversy, after the original nominated candidate, a son of a power local leader, withdraw himself from the running. Manandhar had been under Intensive Care at a hospital in Kathmandu for the preceding seven months before he gained consciousness right in time to claim the nomination from the party. It is understood that he had threatened to quit the party and start his own and run under its banner if the party didn't run him, and the nomination withdrawal was the result of associated pressure from the threat.

Mr. Manandhar or any of his close associates were unavailable to give comment on the record. The Nepa Democratic Forum party media branch refused to say anything on the matter, claiming it was a matter of internal politics and the party was investing all its resources for the upcoming elections.

In fashion: mustache only facial hair

 I've been noticing in my neighborhood that big thick mustaches with no other facial hair, short hair with caps, and shorts shorts are the new rage for men these days. And uhh wifebeaters too but we'll kinda' not talk about them, don't like the name etcetera.

And you know what, I'm so into it. I hate long shaggy beard, hated the hipster woodcutter look and my facial hair never got straight and clean. But with mustache, yeah I can get it thick and fertile, and yeah i can shave the rest of my face every two days. And yes I have so many frickin' shorts and I work out so it's not too bad, plus the baseball cap hides my balding pate. Yum yum yum.

I'm finally trendy, and it happens that what's trendy is also my preferred personal style. This is a sign from the universe methinks.

Frequently Asked Questions about my current situation vis-a-vis 'The Lake'

Prompt: For this week's prompt, your character is tied to a lake. Is it because of duty? Magic? What are they guarding the lake against? You decide!

Source

Q: What did you do to find yourself in your current predicament?
A: The long and the short of it is that I pissed some powerful people, alright, I don't want to go into the details because honestly I'm quite peeved about it and it raises my blood pressure quite a bit, the physician's told me to take it easy, so that's all I'll say. One final thing on that matter is that those fuckers -- and they know who they are even though I don't want to publicize their names -- will be so goddamn sorry when I get out of here, they'll wish they'd never been born, I know if they coulda killed be they would've but they can't so they didn't but it's my turn now and ohh dear I'm going to savor the pain I'll inflict.

Q: How long have you been tied to 'the lake', so to speak?
A: What is time really? A year for a man is different from one for a bird, and different to that for a fly. Having said that, to put it in human terms lets just say I've been here for thousands of human generations even though that's not a very long time for somebody like me, no big deal alright, no need to be all gaga and impressed about my longevity and try to extract my blood and take it to the lab and make an ageless serum, they've tried it in the past and it didn't work, it'll just poison whoever gets close to it.

Q: Please describe your escape plans or future goals, if any, to get yourself out of the dump.
A:Well, depends. If you're one of the guards in the forest or one of the people involved in my current imprisonment, I have absolutely no plans to get out I'm having quite a chill time actually, feels like a vacation thanks for doing it for me my hombres, I'm loving it in here.

If it's somebody else asking, yes yes there's some minor plans on the road that'll hopefully allow me to be in a more leveraged position, so to speak, and be able to make myself freer.

Q: Is it possible you can turn it into a positive learning experience of any kind?
A: Oh yes absolutely, everything is a learning experience, and I've taken this opportunity to look inside myself as a being who's conflicted, has wild desires but is essentially a nice kind individual who's been wronged by evil mean forces but has used that opportunity to find peace and be one with themselves. So yes, this is quite pleasurable and lovely, thank you very much, nothing to worry about, I'm seeing two therapists actually yeah yeah it's lovely, I highly recommend it.

Q: How do you keep yourself fed and entertained?
A: By interfacing with folks such as yourself. Oh I meant for the entertainment part ha ha ha, not about the feeding part yeah yeah I have this whole feeding ritual of skewering animals and fish it's lovely you should come for dinner sometime it'll be so good I've started cooking all the time did I tell you that, yes yes I could go to Top Chef and I bet I'd come on the top haha that's a pun by the way, so yeah I've been eating natural organically grown plants and grass fed wild animals roaming free in the forest though in recent times I'm thinking of becoming a vegan, after trying vegetarianism. It's a growth process. By the way what a great time we're having, why don't you come closer?

Q: Can you give us a general estimate on the number of passerbies/heros/kings that you have interacted with?
A: Oh I have made so many friends, all over the world, it's great, all the great heroes and kings know of me in one form or another, that's a great question by the way where did you learn such amazing journalistic skills, really they should give you a show on netflix maybe you should start your own youtube channel or something because in all the time I've interfaced with heros and kings and other normals never have I been so intellectually challenged, feels good to finally talk to a smart person you know, there's usually only dumdums around here.

Q: Please sir, will you please not eat me?
A: Hahahahaha you sucker, you fell for it! No goddamn way, this is my dinner, gonna save some of your bones for snack, crunchy crnchy snacks. Yuuuuum!

Ten things the mysterious message the scientists just decoded might mean

Prompt: For this week's prompt, scientists have just decoded a mysterious message from the stars. Post your response (500 words or fewer) in the comments below.

Source

 Number three might shock you!

1. They accidentally sent their pizza order to us instead of to their you know, pizza parlor and their diet is real weird because surely they can't be asking us for ingredients to build a powerful bomb?
   
   
2. They're a powerful mafias in their galaxy and on the run from the government and are in need for protection or some sort of weapon-building and therefore have decided to bully the weakest creatures they can find?
   
   
3. This is all a big fat misunderstanding and their message is meant in jest and "Nium" is a real funny dirty word in their language so they're just joking when they're asking for our funny bits, kinda' like the joke about the planet that's also a juvenile pun about one's butthole.
   
   
4. Is it possible they're actually threatening to destroy us for reasons we'll never comprehend because we're so different it's impossible to understand their motivations and model their way of thinking because we've barely understood human psychology let alone how animals or other earthly beings think, so even trying to make sense of what the intention of the message might be is folly and we should either prepare to defend ourselves from them or submit completely and meet their demands.
   
   
5. It might just be a big fat April fool's joke in late October from the scientists?
   
   
6. Some pranksters hacked into all the radio telescopes and space telescopes across the globe and put in jokey messages to mess with everybody and very soon they're going to reveal the joke and we'll have one big laugh and it'll all be fine, no need to worry ha-ha we'll be pissing ourselves when we think back to these days and how worried and depressed everybody was!
   
   
7. Number six but the pranksters are somehow very sick or dead or incapable of revealing the full extent of their joke for some reason or another so we'll never figure out it's a big setup and we've been taken for fools but there's no way to know because no revelation will be incoming we just gotta figure it out from the clues.
   
   
8. It's a Russian ploy to distract us from the various issues they've gotten themselves into, and once we give them everything they want, the message from the 'aliens' will suddenly stop coming.
   
   
9. Number eight but the Russians themselves aren't fully aware of which of their soldiers are doing it and the soldiers are dead in the war so now they too have convinced themselves that it's not their ploy and don't have any evidence in the contrary because the equipment and personnel involved in this conspiracy have all been destroyed in the war.
   
   
10. It's a cross-connection, they meant to call their adversaries from across the galaxy and connected to them but due to weird issues with long-distance communication, we also got received the repeated messages, but we don't have to worry about it, really!
    

Why Seattle Public Library whyyy

Why do you treat me
Like an unflushable turd
That you are too afraid
To plunge
Away?

Oh the great
Public Library
Of the city
Of Seattle
Why does it feel
Like I am the boyfriend
You cannot bring yourself
To breakup with
Because of your
Confrontation issues
And you will
Go all the way
With your
Passive-aggressive ways
To make me
Go away?

Hey you,
Why won't you
Just email me
When the goddamn
Books are due,
And instead wait
A week to tell me
I'm way past my date
And make me feel bad
So much guilt too?
Why the pain love
What scares you
What hath the dark lord wrought?

I beg
Let me go
Tell me straight
When you want
Your books back
So I don't fear
That my card
May be in the arrear
I'm just a normal guy
Be straight with me,
Like a big boy.

Guide for myself when I'm running low on inspiration and motivation

 If I'm reading this, I'm probably out of ideas right now. Here's the trouble with writing unprompted. There's way too many options in the universe of everything to hone on something specific to write on. Even if I've figured out the style of the piece, there's no direction for the substance, and if I know the substance either I gotta write it down on general 'story or dialog' pattern, or I'm outta luck.

So here's an idea. For prompted pieces, either I write the way I want to do it, or I pick the prompt, and I pick a style, and run with it. That way I'm extremely limited in my creativity universe, which gives a lot more time to focus on actual substance.

So, the idea is:

1.  From the list of prompts on the right, pick one prompt.

AND

1.1.1 From the list of styles, pick the next style and write in that style

OR

1.1.2 Pick an existing storyline and continue it with the prompt in mind

OR

1.1.3 Pick a new storyline and write using the prompt

 

2. From the list of existing storylines, pick one storyline

AND

2.1.1 Continue writing on it with whatever style it was being written.

OR

2.1.2 Pick the next style from the list of styles and continue the story using that style.

OR

2.1.3 Do something wild, I dunno, maybe combine the styles etcetera.

I should start writing novels again

I was doing so well until early 2021, got like 10 different novel threads going, planning, character development, snowflake method, nanowrimo all of that, and then with the disruptions of covid plus the move to seattle plus general stress it stopped, what a massive bummer. I should go back to paying attention to those novel threads I'd developed, continue working on them and finish at least one. It's been said in the past in these pages, one is not above self-publishing or what is called vanity publishing, if that 2k usd is the sign of utmost vanity let it be, don't care, also if a hundred copies are sold sixty percent of that is going to be made back anyway, so not a big loss. Will I be able to make back that money? Why am I even thinking of the money right now, it's about the passion and the sense of accomplishment and purpose of finally having published something, of self-validation and hopefully social validation but that comes later, what's important is that I start feeling like I'm not a lost cause that all my dreams desires and hopes were not completely and totally compromised for a lifestyle I don't care for.

That's it.

I'll start writing novels again.

This is what it's come down to, begging friends to set me up with their friends

 Yeah, well that's it. Ng and I find ourselves among the rare group of people from our extended group who are single and ready to mingle and have a normal conventional lifestyle, not eschewing society's expectations etcetera because a normal healthy relationship with a caring loving partner is what we want. Which is saying a lot it turns out, not what I'd have imagined but these are strange times. Strange, strange indeed. I've learned so much since moving to Seattle.

In any case, because single women don't grow on trees apparently and the app situation is not favorable to somebody looking to meet people fitting my criteria plus I don't have the energy or perhaps the time to figure out somebody and have all their insecurities and trauma come out over the course of many many years and then learn to figure it out the only source of getting to meet new people is being set up with friends of friends.

And that's where I am.

I'm not particularly ashamed, no, just a bit annoyed that just as I've come to this realization a large portion of people I know seem to be on the 'nope, not setting people up anymore, I'm outta that game' which is a bit annoying as it suggests maybe they were held liable for the damages caused by the toxic relationships they created, which isn't true. They're bored, don't know any cool single people or are like lazy or whatever, so annoying and won't help you out. And then there's some people who will go out of their way to not let you meet their girl friends because they say you're part of their guy friend circle and they need their separate group with the girlies and they can't make the groups interact. Dunno.

Right.

Where from here?

I have some leads, which again sounds terribly sad but you know what they say about getting to make choices as a person of limited means.

Secondary fermentation bonanza

This is the proof, the most definite sign that things are going well in the fermentation world and have improved since I took upon the projects late last year.

A couple of days ago I decided to take upon the ultimate challenge in fermenting my various brews, something so simple in Boston that it hadn't gotten a second thought but was being problematic here. The secondary fermentation. Which is when you take your initial brew, add in flavors (aka fruits) and sugars (more fruits or sugar), put everything in a sealed container and cross your fingers, hoping for the best. The idea is that the yeasties in the brew will eat up the sugar, separate the flavor and produce co2, thus carbonating and flavoring the drink. When the result is put into the fridge, the co2 dissolves into the drink giving it the effervescent flavor and stops the process, thereby stopping potential explosion.

My attempts at secondary fermentation hadn't been working well in Seattle though, instead of consuming sugar to produce co2, the drinks were just getting sweeter and boozier and i'd been confounded. But this time around, with lots of ripe banana and ginger, it worked out!

Like really really well though.

As in, in Boston I'd keep my kombucha outside for second fermentation for a couple of days before putting in the fridge. Here I had the bottles out for a day, day and a half, and they were so ready to explode into a messy geyser. So it's definitely been more vigorous and exciting. Hope the taste's as amazing too.

Minor update on the evolution of the uncomfortable strange situation

 A couple of weeks ago I was hinting regularly at a strange weird rather unfortunate situation that I found myself encumbered in to which there seemed to be no good way out, and it was uncomfortable for all the parties. Haven't talked about that in a while so why not take this opportunity to bring it back for a while.

Cut a long story short, things have sorted themselves out essentially. First I discovered that I was not the only person being weirded out by the very strange nature of things, and that it wasn't me who was the outsider with cultural shock, it was the persons involved who were uhh lets put it lightly, unconventional. Second, one of the persons involved conveniently went out of town for a long while, therefore relieving the necessity think about the situation or be bothered by it. One other person involved has been AWOL generally speaking which honestly has worked in my favor. Would I like more friends in this town to hang out with and be an adult around, yes please? Would I want to compromise my more fundamental ideals and beliefs to do that, no thank you very much. And thirdly perhaps the situation can untangle itself eventually when persons with flightier interests. Exciting stuff for me hah.

Now only if I can expand my circle a bit far and wide, and have people to talk to and hang with most days of the week it'd be great. That's still a work in progress and might remain so for a while. Maan I love the nature aspect of Seattle, but the friendmaking part of it sucks a hundred buck.

Airfried eggplant sandwich lunch, mistakes, busy at work, daylong blog reorganization, volunteer-interlaken loop, park party, ferment upgrade, kefir dinner [Thu 21]

 Work was pretty busy, if only because I discovered a bug in a library I had to use. Frustrating and attention-crushing.

For lunch I airfried eggplant circles with spices and flour and honey. Bad idea. Shouldn't have put the honey in, shouldn't have put the flour in because they burned really quick. The sandwich was incredible, a pleasant change in the regular tomato-mozz favourite. Something new and interesting to look forward too. Mistakes were made, alright people?

After work I drank a few cups of tea, and organized this blog by tagging a tonne of old posts, on the way to creating threads for serialized fiction. Hoping to continue writing on those so I can finish at least one 'novel' of sorts by the end of this year.

Spent a considerable time avoiding to write anything here, after writing three posts, showered shaved put on the baseball cap and went on a walk. The volunteer-interlaken loop, classic, I got it in 1.5 hours exactly despite chillin' for 10 minutes during the walk. Really brisk walk too, at this rate my legs will have seriously jacked and stamina will improve a lot.

Discovered a concert and food trucks at volunteer park, they have those at 6-8.30 in the evenings during the summer. Fun but it was a pity I didn't have the time to stay and listen because I had to get the steps in, get home, process the brews and write in here.

After getting home at 9, spent 30 minutes to process kefir (gotta improve that process, make it faster once again), cleared the two water kefir jar of over yeasting, bottled one jar of kombucha and bottled half jar of water kefir. Also put the bubbler on the other jar of water kefir, by putting in the cap first and then the cloth cover, I'm hoping to avoid insects and leakage while discouraging fruitflies.

Bottled kombucha, banana and ginger inside the bottles, I'm excited about how that's going to taste. Thinking of second fermentation for three or three days and then in the fridge they go.

For dinner I had bit of kefir.

And I write this at almost midnight, having kept it to the latest possible time. With this I'll have written six posts tomorrow, meaning besides the daily 4, I'll have to write for today on tomorrow and then I'll not have to cover too much for days gone by because I'll make a habit of writing my own posts daily  here.

Can barely keep my eyes open right now, listening to HDTGM right now!

Egg and fried rice lunch, hang with the boys in the sun, walk to volunteer park with AR, fruit dinner and netflix with half-gang [Wed 20]

 For lunch I had egg fried rice, it was yum yum. Should maybe eat more fried rice and dal and tarkari instead of cheese sandwiches because yeah rice is bad for you but at least it takes you further.

At noon time went to AKS's place to meet the three boys who'd flown in from Cali to go to Canada. PT and AS had their lunch with Sk and myself on AKS's roof. The guy himself isn't back from Mx yet. T, fried of the group showed up too. Didn't  meet SS because he was busy in a meeting while we were there. I was cooked in the sun, so we moved to the shade and later in the AC'd common area. AC is great, with the global warming and what not, I want.

In the evening I drank lotsa tea, napped for a bit, watched tv, walked to Volunteer park with AR(e). Back at my place we invited AR(y) and had massive watermelon while watching netflix. I didn't feel like cooking anything due to the heat.

Went to sleep without meaning to, right in the living room without brushing. Got up in the middle of the night, brushed and went to sleep at 3am.

Five-grocery trips, fried rice lunch, litchi-kefir dinner, lotsa writing, nap, latenight walk and failure to find sunscreen [Tue 19]

For lunch I had fried rice which I made with ginger and onions and green onions and all the rest. Few to none spices, besides msg, black pepper and salt. It seemed meh at lunch but dinner was awesome. Need to remember semi-cooked fried egg over rice with green onions and furikake is incredible. Oof. Eaten on a bowl, there's something about eating rice and eggs on a bowl that elevates the meal somehow.

After work I went on uhh five grocery trips.

Went to Trader Joe's and got the basic supplies, milk bread etcetera. Got home, packed all of those. Felt I was followed by homeless man on the way, it was a little bit worrying truth be told.

Went to little Saigon, to Hau Hau for the spices but they were massively overpriced. Got mushroom and few spices, not as many as I wanted to.

Checked Vietwah for bulk Shin Ramyun, the store was closed. The one day of the week they're closed I showed up.

Went to the Viet/Chinese store before Hau Hau, the spice store, they were more reasonably priced, bourhgt all the spices there.

Drank three cups of tea throughout the day. Wrote a bunch while drinking tea.

In the evening went to walk in the park because I hadn't reached 10k steps yet. Figured I'd go to QFC for sunscreen because I'd planned to go to the driving range the next afternoon. Didn't find sunscreen, walked around the store for twenty minutes late at night for no good reason. And that was the fifth grocery store!

Went to sleep pretty late because I'd napped earlier in the day, the sun sapped all the energy outta me.

Going to buy my own vintage kombucha for premium price

Having discovered that my post of yore (by which I mean 2/2.5 years ago) used to be hella long and substantial, it's a little embarrassing now to be posting on topics that are way less substantial and lack in heft. But then there was a complete and total abandonment of writing anything non-personal, so one does run out of things to say about oneself, the depth and length of the personal posts is probably the first and the biggest victim of collapse of the blog into being a journal.

Regardless, we must move on, to ponder on every thought and consideration I've ever had, beyond the interesting and serious philosophical ones I have, because I'm too intimidated to write on them.

This is something that came up a couple of weeks ago and having thought about it a couple of times on separate occasions it makes total sense, this is my go-ahead plan when in Boston.

DBHD has a bottle of kombucha that I gifted him almost four years ago in his wine fridge, it was there two years ago and unless things changed considerably, I don't doubt it's still there. I will propose buying it back from him for a hundred bucks for the vintage batch of kombucha of my own making, and share it with the group, whatever it may be. It'll be only a few sips per person, but ohhh man imagine how sweet yet tangy and restrained in flavor it must have gotten over the years.

Age takes off the edge off everything, they say. It's true for rocks, it's true for people and it's very true for anything brewed. I imagine it's true for the batches of kombucha I brewed as well. I'm eager to find out what the outcome of this outstandingly long, and unintentional experiment, has been!

Just made an eggplant sandwich I would pay twelve bucks to eat

 There is no denying that the sandwich you will read about in the following paragraphs will sound suspiciously similar to the pesto-mozz-tomato sandwich I've written about for the last what...sigh...two months...maybe?...and which has gotten tiring, really, pinky promise and the goal of the next few days is to rid of all the ingredients needed to make it and start scratch with something else, healthier better etcetera.

Perhaps this new sandwich can be taken as a step towards exhausting the supply of ingredients for the now-boring sandwich, a nicotin patch for my sandwich's cigarette, so to speak.

There's no point in describing the old sandwich in detail, so that will be bunked, instead I'll explain the replacements. The tomato is replaced by air fried eggplant. And whatever remains of bruschetta one might have in the fridge are added to the sandwich instead.

Let's talk about the air-fried eggplant for a bit now.

It's taken me a whole lot of pain and eating disgusting things to discover honey four and head without moisture don't go very well. Things will burn very, very fast, and the parts of the food that are intact will also taste like burnt food. Bitter and not great. And the texture of whatever food it may be is like a chewy jerky.

Yes, that happened this afternoon. I made a sauce for the eggplant before roasting that included vinegar soy sauce honey and flour among other things and the eggplants came out...toasty...to put it best. Not ideal. But not bad in a sandwich. If only I'd not bothered with the flour, the situation could potentially have been a lot better, who knows what came onto me to make this terrible decision. You can't replicate deep frying so easily.

Still delicious though. Two more rolls left (or maybe one?) and a solid pieces of eggplant remain, this will be a good ending to my sammich days, looking forward to it!