I shall persevere

I am not
Going anywhere
And yes
I will
Persevere
I am that
Little insect
The termite
Or the woodbug
That you can swat
But cannot destroy
And will
Bite, here and there
And there and there
Until one day
The whole thing
Collapses
Everywhere.
The enemy
Can be strong
But not stronger
Than my grit
The enemy has power
But not more
Than the patience
I have.
There is time
To bide
To wait
To jump and pounce
And make my move
To bring the whole rotten goddamn system
Crumbling down,
Until finally
From it forms
A new bird
Of freedom
And respect
And dignity
For all.
I shall
Persevere.

Quinoa lunch, scooby doo watch, laundry, RBG with a new friend, La Dive with a new crew, latenight leave, very latenight hang and chill [Wed 31]

 I'm writing this several days later because I didn't get around to writing all of this over the long weekend. I was having too much fun, if I may say so, which is not strictly true but let's pretend, okay, I'm not having the greatest time ever ever all the time so gimme a break will ya, etc etc.

So for lunch I had the quinoa, fried it and had it with veggies. Probably. I only have the quinoa in my pics and it was like five days ago so I don't remember what exact veggie I had with it, I do remember kimchi quinoa lunch one of those days, it could have been the one.

In the evening did laundry, watched scooby doo etcetera.

Went to get a drink with A, who is P's friend, and she was fun. I got a drink, very strong at RBG and then we went to La Dive where AKS came too and we chilled and I had my second drink. I was fortunately not quite drunk. Walked A to her place, and had to shit real bad and didn't want to soil my pants so to speak. So 1.30am stopped by AKS's place, shit, smoked a bunch, and talked about Nepali politics until three in the morning.

Kefir smoothie lunch, quinoa-curry dinner, voluteer-interlaken loop, I pay the bills and cancel things and schedule medical appointments, reading comedy book, heavy writing and work work in evening, early to bed[Tue 30]

 I write this the afternoon of the next day and lemme tell you it's hot as balls once again even though it's September. The seasons have gone mad, that's all I can say thank you very much.

Work was lazy and productive as always, man I need to get my work mojo back.

For lunch I had smoothie.

Wrote a bunch, meditated and showered after work. Went to volunteer-interlaken loop. Chilled at the park for a bit, ate a lot of berries, called a lot of people in the evening to wish happy teej.

After walk came back, cancelled my utilities in Boston, paid a bunch of bills I had to pay, and scheduled my medical appointment. Read the Greg Dean comedy book. Wrote a bunch in the evening, ate quinoa and curry for dinner. Spent like an hour doing work work, because nothing was done during the day. Went to bed at a pretty respectable time around 10.30 though it was so incredibly fucking hot during the night I had nightmares and couldn't sleep well. Maybe cos' I was sleeping in my bedroom haha.

Writing comedy

 So, I'm writing comedy now.

I'm reading Greg Dean's Step-by-step guide to Standup comedy, which I was skeptical about when I started, but it's actually solid and does give you a clear path to understanding standup jokes and writing new ones. The techniques may not be super advanced, and the joke construction may be simple but one's gotta start from somewhere, particularly if somebody is not talented in the field, and that's possibly the best book to start learning comedy writing for performing.

I should write a review of the book once I'm done reading, but it's more of a reference book than an end-to-end reading, though it helps tremendously if one does read the book end-to-end before using it for reference. I'm learning a lot and my confidence in writing jokes has been growing. Also now I'm understanding that writing jokes is just like writing a blog, and the way you create a comedy routine is to string together a bunch of jokes with a segue and keep polishing the routine after performing them in front of various crowds until you perfect it. It's hard work and it can take years but you gotta start somewhere. Kinda like learning golf. Except people don't throw tomatoes at you if you're a bad golf player and also you're not playing golf for the entertainment of dozens of really drunk people.

It's exciting, I'm eager, his suggestions have already help me rethink a bunch of jokes I was thinking of taking to the comedy class that's starting in a week! Oh yea, the comedy class starts in less than a week, and I'm trying to read up and come up with at least a few minutes of material. The only thing I'm afraid of is the LPM metric, or the laugh-per-metric, they recommend you try to maintain it at 5 or above, which I think is going to be quite rough for somebody like me who's never done comedy before, but that's ambitious and I guess it'll help me set my aims high.

Annual checkup confirmed

 So I did my first annual checkup last year and discovered a couple of things from the tests, namely I might be on the path to being out of shape but technically am fine and dandy up to now. And it was good to know because I feared I'd have been really really very much out of shape.

Yesterday I scheduled my annual lab test for tomorrow because the app from my insurance company gives me points that I can then gamble to get wonderful points which is much bigger an incentive than just my health reasons or being in proper shape. My regular appointments with my therapist are also on the way to being scheduled (he's figuring his stuff out) so that's another notch in the post.

The other two appointments I need to make -- three or four actually are eye checkup, eyeglass appointment, general physical with my doctor (my old NP moved really far away and the only reason she was my NP was because she was close to me physically speaking so I gotta acquire a new physician) and then a general dental appointment and dental cleaning. I don't want to schedule dental cleaning right away because I know I'll get complaints and I hate being scolded, so I'll want to have flossed regularly for two or three weeks before going to the dentists, because I want that pat on the back for taking good care of my teeth. Again. not because I did it for the good of my body.

I really really want shades, the ones with prescription so I can see well and also look cool and also not have to squint in the sun. Not clear though if that's going to happen before I head out to the East in less than a month.

Frequently asked questions about our new corporate headquarters

Q. Why did we move our headquarters to the new location?
A. Because of cost-cutting measures, and the company had already previously acquired the new headquarters we decided that it would optimize the available resources so we could best serve our customers while providing good experience for our employees.

Q. Why does it look so scary?
A. Granted, the architecture is a bit...unconventional, but you might find it strange because you're unused to it. It takes time to get used to new technologies and new paradigms, just like our CEO says. All the brutalist buildings, such a rage in their own times, are now considered to be ugly and evil-looking. So what if our Tower of Doom looks similar, it will only grow on you?

Q. What's up with the large eye on the top of the tower?
A. It's a purely aesthetic feature of the building previously used by the original builders for unknown purpose, so there's no need to be intimidated by it. Having said that we understand that some employees are concerned that we spent so much money for such a wasteful feature, so we're talking to the tech guys to understand the complications behind bringing it back to being functional, so please be patient while we work towards getting the giant fiery eye working once again!

Q. Why does entering the vicinity of the new building fill me with gloom and dark thoughts?
A. Some people have reported that entering the new structure (well for us anyway!) or its surroundings provoke feelings of hopelessness, desolation and gloom. We believe it's not due to the building and possibly due to the new working conditions that the evil Democratic government has imposed on us, so we cannot really do anything about that sorry! SO if you believe PRIVATE PARTIES should NOT be forced to give anybody at LEAST THREE WEEKS of paid vacation for no reason than just existing, please reach out to your local representatives to overturn the ruling, we too feel gloomy and have dark thoughts about the whole situation.

Q. How is such a structure relevant when we make cars?
A. Don't consider your favourite car company as just a car manufacturer, consider it a lifestyle brand. We consider ourselves to be a tech company that makes lifestyle products and we function similarly. So the structure completely fits in our corporate manifesto. It just happens to be the case that we sell cars, but as our fans will tell you, we have also branched out to selling liquor, merch, blowtorches, weapons, rotten carcasses and really anything our wonderful and extremely smart consumer base will spend their precious dollars on.

Q. Are we evil?
A. No more questions, thank you very much.

Recipe for my pretty goddamn decent Tofu Green Thai Curry that lasted me approx. six months in one batch of cooking

 This is pretty sad and pathetic but also really exciting in a way. I've written about this recipe and batch of food for approx two bazillion journal posts.

Take the packet of tofu and train it any way you want it to, cut it into decent sized cubes. Avoid making them too small or there's no bite. Make them too big and they won't cook well. Put them evenly on a large pan so every piece touches the oil, medium hot on the pan, and turn around until at least three of the four sides have browned for all the tofu pieces.

On a large pot, cook some roughly cut onions, bell peppers (either raw or frozen), tomato, garlic, ginger, a little pit of salt, and green chillis. Cook until the onions slightly brown. Also put in frozen spinach if you want to make the recipe healthy. Then several large pieces / spoonfuls / chunks of green thai curry paste. Cook the paste actually so it gets heated well, spread it out well otherwise it'll taste a bit too extreme.

Add some water and let it cook for 10 minutes letting the mixture thicken again. After it's looking like it's back to being in paste form, add either coconut milk or kefir or any other sauce to make it creamy. Let the sauces simmer for 10 - 15 minutes, so the sauce is hot and all the ingredients are properly mixed. Add the tofu from the previous step into the concoction, making sure all tofu pieces are completely covered, and cover, while simmering for 20 minutes.

Your dish is ready, eat with rice or noodles or quinoa or roti.

Unable to execute

The morning is gone
In daze an confusion
And in desperate need
To go back to sleep.

Early noon is wasted
In trying to avoid
Getting any work done
And hey, I think
I gotta have some fun
And thus go
Another three hours.

Noon time,
The two hours
I feel I need to work
But then something comes up
A friend's message
Or a hunger pang
Perhaps the urgent need
To call a friend
Who I haven't had
The time to hang.

Afternoon I cannot work during
It's my time I think
And I need me some me-time
Late afternoon is when I go for walk
Early evening I'll come back
To cook and blog and clean
And by the time
It's night,
It's youtube time.

And that is why
I don't get any work work done
And I feel like a piece of wasted scum
Help me, help me gods
I just want to work work
At least some time
And not run waste my precious time.

Day off, smoothie lunch, busride and back to belltown, lowkey Volunteer park walk, rancho bravo dinner, lots of writing and latenight working, not enough sleep [Mon 29]

 Took the day off because I was not feeling 'it' and also I figured I'd get some work done. Surprisingly did get some work done.

In the morning I cleaned up the place (a little bit) wrote a bunch in my blog in here. Had smoothie for lunch and fell so fresh. Caught up on the lack of sleep. Read a little bit too. The smoothie was made of banana, cocoa powder, kefir sugar and peaches. Yum yum yum.

In the afternoon recharged my orca card for the first time in a year and took the bus to belltown to the girls' place to collect their package. Got the returning bus straight away, but the stuff in my apartment and went on a walk. Took two rounds of volunteer park instead of the regular rounds because I'd already gotten close to 10k and as I've been writing about recently, haven't had that much energy to get my 15k+ steps daily recently.

In the evening tried to do some writing and work work but didn't have the energy, so went to Rancho braveo and got myself the veggie burrito and quickly gobbled it up. Came back, worked for an hour, listened to two hours of hindi music, worked a little bit more, and went to sleep. Very very late. Had trouble sleeping but whatever.

Final legal connection to Boston, byebyebye

 I'm right now in the process of cancelling the utilities associated with my old apartment back in Boston (well, medford technically but same difference). After this pretty much all of my connections to the old place, and the old town will be over, in the official sense. Of course there's the tiny little matter that my bank address is still the address from two addresses ago but I don't mind that because that way I won't have to share my current location of residence with creepy internet websites which publicize it to literally the entire goddamn world. So my bank address will remain the same, and by 'the same' I mean an addresses I never lived in, and one my friends lived until a year ago, and that's it. NO more utilities, no more past apartments occupied by friends. It's a clean break. With Jd moving out of the town, SS and other folks (both the SS's, funnily enough) the connections to the town, in the 'good old days' sense are tenuous. There's Pk of course, and I who moved relatively recently, but this is a whole new world now. Which means now I'm a man of Seattle. Wild times are ahead. Exciting possibly. Scary, definitely. Wild. Wild. Gotta make the most of what I have now.

The story of three girls and a guy

 Rekha was single, her parents wanted to find her a good guy and she was not opposed to it. Her requirements and her parents' were different, and she felt that if she was judged on physical appearance quite frankly, she had the right to be just as judmental about the guys' looks, something her parents didn't agree with. No, they said, looks are important for a girl, and you are a girl, it doesn't matter for a man because it's their responsibility and other things that count. Well, she said, I'm a responsible adult as you know since I"m the biggest earner in this family and also do household chores and you also know that I make more money than most of the guys you'll find for me, so isn't it fair that I get whatever privileges that are given to guys, because how am I any less than them? Like if I find a husband who is ugly and who doesn't make as much as I do and is not as ambitious and responsible as I am, then what exactly am I marrying such a doofus for? Why would I even want to get married? The truth was, Rekha's parents didn't have a good answer to that, and just shushed her and told her to not argue with them, but they knew her arguments had merit and didn't really know how to deal with the situation.

And there was quite another situation brewing up to which her parents were completely unaware.

You see Rekha had a friend who she had met a year and a half before, Bhekha, and she was pretty nice, not specially beautiful but she was smart and a bit demanding but she was fun to be around, and would be be down for any fun activities anybody ever did. Bhekha hadn't been quite ready to be married, but her parents had other plans in store for her, and got her married anyway. Bhekha was quite relieved to discover then that she wouldn't have to spend too much time with her husband as he had to travel frequently on business, so it was like she had a boyfriend who'd make an occasional appearance and things would be fun for a while, and just as they got boring or annoying he'd disappear.

It was around this time Rekha and Bhekha's friendship got stronger and also Bhekha got sick and tired of Nepali culture and following the rules etcetera, and started talking to Rekha for hours and hours and hours. And Rekha didn't mind the attention. Here was somebody she considered to be her equal who showered her with the attention and talked about interesting things, why would she be bothered? Also the conversations soon started to veer on the more adult of topics and it got clearer that maybe Bhekha wanted to cheat on her husband with Rekha. Rekha was down for that. She had spent a limited amount of time with girls in such circumstances, but Bhekha was nice and interesting so she'd be down for that.

The thing is, things were complicated for Bhekha, and it would become clear slowly to Rekha. As Bhekha got more stressed out, she would be hot an cold, and also more daring and interested in a tryst with Bhekha.

Now Rekha had another female friend Mekha who was mostly a platonic friend, she was into guys but found Rekha alluring because of how domineering and powerful and ambitious she was. So Rekha would spend hours and hours complaining about all of Bhekha's issues, and Mekha would listen patiently, giving her good advice, telling her not to cheat on her husband with a girl because of various reasons, but most importantly it would definitely not be worth it.

Mekha had a guy friend who wasn't completley in love with her, but they flirted all the time and he teased her and all of that, and all the time they used to flirt together was now being taken by Mekha's time with Rekha, and he was pretty disappointed about that. He tried to explain to Mekha that whatever affection she had for Rekha was one way and Rekha might be an interesting person but she was also quite clearly so very selfish, and there was no space for her in Rekha's life save for as a free therapist, but she wouldn't listen.

Anyway, things would keep going on just like that, because this is life and nothing interesting or wild never happened particularly in the guy's life, whose name was Ramesh by the way. Also for some reason Mekha wouldn't even introduce Ramesh to Rekha even though they were both single and ready to mingle, she'd come up with all the ridiculous excuses as to why things wouldn't work out between them and that she didn't want to get in the middle of everything.

General state of various things and I don't feel like doing all that matters

 sometimes there's so many crises of other people that I had to deal with that my issues -- which truth be told aren't that big, like my biggest issue at hand is that I'm not motivated at work and I haven't cleaned my living room in a few weeks -- don't seem big in comparison and I'm not bothered to do anything about them but also the massive tragic situations other people find themselves in stresses me out and often immobilizes me not in like I can't move or work but I think man the world is such a crazy wild place and i don't know if it's really the right time to work or vacuum my living room and so on and so forth and no progress and so there's houseflies in my apartment I don't think it's related to me not vacuuming recently, it can't possibly be the case, and besides they also appeared this time of the last year, what a weird co-incidence, now I'm wondering if those large houseflies are seasonal and appear only around August/September if everything else is checked and cleaned etcetera? really though I'm getting a bit anxious about everything related to work becuase the lziness I've been displaying has been outstanding and I really really need to come up with a deliverable soon enough.

The giraffe learns a hard lesson

Character: The Giraffe was loved to drink and party. And when he got rowdy he often didn't listen to his friends. But also he was kind and nice, and would buy drinks for everybody. And he was a regular volunteer at the local religious organization and the food bank. He also donated thirty percent of his weekly income to the homelessness coalition, an organization helping rehouse local homeless people.

Personification: However, every time he got drunk he would stop listening to his friends, and take of his underpants, and put back his trousers. Every time. People were super duper weirded out by it, but hey he was a pretty decent guy otherwise and he wasn't hurting otherwise and no goddamn way he was a sexual predator, he wasn't that kind of person. But people would often tell him to really put his underpants on because one day he'd get into trouble but in his drunken stupor he wouldn't listen to them.

One day there was a large party in his dormroom and he went and drank a lot. Danced with a bunch of people, did weed and drank more. He was getting out hand. His friends told him, hey giff, gotta take control, please don't get wild and take off your underpants again but he wouldn't listen. He went to the restroom and did exactly that.

Conflict: The Giraffe doesn't want to listen to his friends, and gets drunk and crazy, he takes his pants off before leaving. He tries to fart at the department store at three in the morning, but accidentally shits. He forgets he didn't have his underpants on, so he shits on his pants and it gets all over the floor. The police is called, he's ticketed for multiple violations, and the media makes fun of him.

Moral: Don't go into a department store without your underpants on.

I cannot

I cannot bear
The weight
Of the world
On my shoulders
Anymore.

I cannot
Anymore
Help the needy
And I cannot
Anymore
Be
The voice
Of the voiceless.

For my shoulders
Have sagged
And my voice
So very sore.

My mind
Is now
A battleground
Of
Other people's trauma
and perhaps
a suspicion
that the world
is rotten
at its very core
for
a lot of  people.

How then
Do I live
A normal
Nice and kind
Life
If I cannot be
Where they need me?

Seven new commandments for the modern world

1.  He who eats the last piece of the pie shall have to acquire a new pie, and also he cannot take a large chunk of the pie and pretend he didn't eat the last pie technically because there was still some remaining left.
   
   
2. He who uses double or even triple-ply toilet paper in their personal toilet but shitty asshurting single-ply toilet paper for the guest bathroom shall find themselves in the lowest level of hell, to be tortured by asswhipping of the not-fun kind.
   
   
3. Cutting in line of any kind, specially while pretending to know somebody and carrying on as if nothing happened, shall be punishable by a hundred years in hell where the soul is not allowed to sit and wait out in the sun in high humidity throughout.
   
   
4. Unless they are able to prove so, any older man claiming the younger woman was actually way more mature for her age and therefore any sort of relationship physical and/or emotional with her was totally fine and/or legal shall have their scrotum stretched apart in the six directions by massive crows for a thousand years.
   
   
5. Any person claiming that homeless persons need to be supported, without providing them housing personally, who insists they should not be removed from the streets as they harrass and bother common citizens shall be forced to share a small apartment with a hundred of the smelliest most annoying roommates who have no sense of boundaries and also will shit and masturbate everywhere inconsiderately.
   
   
6. Anybody who does not observe proper personal hygiene in a social context shall be forced to live with the most annoying roommate who keeps talking big on important political issues but has absolutely no intention to follow up on anything and also they're just pretending to care about those issues where in reality they're in it for rather selfish reasons and they won't stop talking for one moment about it and also they will literally argue to death with people who they agree with the most.
   
   
7. People who hurt or bother pets and animals in general, even the asshole wild ones, will be tortured for all eternity.
   

Those that escape the new Nepali Junta

In the past, all the rebellious groups, all the groups hoping to mount a coup against the government, had been in communication with senior bureaucrats and commanders of the armed forces. Do not worry, the messages, said, once (and if but that was better left unsaid) we take over, we will not bring about the extreme changes we have promised everybody else. The changes will be gradual, all members of bureaucracy and security services that co-operate will be safe, there will be no recriminations, besides the senior leaders the political structure of the country would remain mostly unchanged in the short term.

That was to avoid creating a power vacuum and counter-insurgencies that often plagued not-quite-popular rebellions. One day you're the rebel storming into the town putting your enemies' heads on spikes and declaring a new republic, and the next you're being stormed by yet another rebellion, and this time you are the 'man', the villain of the commonfolk and now it's your turn to get beheaded and spiked.

Incompetent and corrupt as they were, the leaders of the past were politically astute enough to understand that continuity was of the utmost importance in survival. Their self-preservation was what often got them into power, and through various political alliances and machinations, kept them around despite all the enemies they would make.

This one was different. And that was a cause of great concern. Those who had made out, or had been outside when the coup happened could tell this was a strange one. There had been no signalling by the rebels, no previous communication, no hints or warnings to be prepared. They didn't seem to have bothered with the downsides of the political vacuum caused by their takeover. There was no fear of counter-revolution. Which meant that they were quite inept politically, or that they were confidence of their force and political suave, and didn't need to worry about compromising with their vanquished foes.

Over the following weeks, it came out that senior Army leaders had made out, and so had the troops stationed nearby border areas. Certain politicians had happened to be outside the country during the takeover, and as always bureaucrats seemed to have an innate skill in protecting themselves from grave danger. After the borders had been completely sealed by the sudden appearance of ruthless guards of uncertain origin, the international boundaries became impregnable, save for the stream of former bureaucrats here and there and local leaders who would escape to tell the tale of what had happened. By the end of the first year, almost a third of the original bureaucracy cadre had made out, several tens of thousands security personnel and a decent amount of senior leadership. A counterrevolution was viable, if only anybody knew what was happening inside the country.

Morality among the gods

It had not always been this way.

In the past, the Gods still had reasons to listen to mortals, to the Kings as well as the beggars, to men and women, and all the creatures big and small, because that was how they got their power. The agglomeration of force hadn't begun, and while one could reasonably imagine being in favor of a powerful king who commanded a large number of subjects who he could force to worship his deity of choice would work better than being worshipped by say, a fly, that didn't always pan out well for the deities in question. For example, everybody knew the story of the old god Om who was supposedly the most powerful and worshipped god in his local pantheon and yet his existence kept on diminishing until he just about popped out of existence. He lived as a mere tortoise for thousands of years until his strongest devotee... the only one remaining. who worshipped him for who he was, and didn't just make a show out of the whole religion business without giving as much as a thought to the god of devotion, picked him up and brought him back to power.

The gods got a lot more egalitarian after that, not out of kindness their heart or a sense of justice, both qualities which by the way they seemingly had less of than the evilest of mortals, but due to to a very honed skill of self-preservation. That is what they were the best at...preserving their realms, and their hold onto power at any cost, damned be the ethics of getting there. Most had the sense that there was no sense of morality or rightness or wrong in the world, it was them and only them who set those rules and they were above following the rules they'd set in stone for their followers. Thuggery and villainy was not just considered acceptable, it was respectable. As long as you came out on the top that is. For the gods it had always been winners takers. There was only one rule they followed, and it was that of the power. That who is stronger is righter than that who is weaker. Everything came after that.

The above was not strictly true for all the deities, truth be told. There were certain gods and goddesses, who'd formed groups of their own, who considered the values they'd hold their followers upon to apply to themselves too. They believed in higher standards and ethical universal moral laws, the sort that would apply to everybody, including the powerful beings. It was perhaps their self-set limits on unethical actions that didn't let them get very far in palace of swarga. But they were out there for each other, not for strategic political reasons but because they considered each other to be a part of a worthy cause that would lift them all, and that was their strongest asset.

Pizza review: Mad Pizza

 This is a review bit too late because this surprise pizza came in last week but eh still worth discussing.

It might be unfairly in favor of this pizza that getting it was a pleasant surprise and I was so excited and eager to get it. I really loved the flavor of it, I went at it and devoured it in a a matter of minutes. The four slices I mean, not the entire slice.

The veggie one that I got was juicy, the veggies were crisp and not smelly, the cheese was thick without being greasy or cloying, and the fake meat was sumptuous. I didn't feel like the pizza was lacking in any way, and if I dare make such a ridiculous pronouncement, a comparison to my all-time favourite Domino's, this pizza was a bit better than most Domino's I've had. The crust was decent but the toppings and the cheese, mwaaah, I don't understand how they preserve the moisture after all that time in the super-hot oven.

I'd recommend folks at least try the pizza once and check for themselves. I'm not yet a total fan, but I'm getting there.

I might have dia-beetus

 I get thirsty a lot sometimes. Like in restaurants I will drink literally ten glasses sometimes. Though to be fair I can go pretty long without drinking water too. And often I will need to go pee literally every fifteen minutes. Probably from all the water drinking I did earlier. People will get fed up and annoyed and tired about how often I gotta go. Plus my energy levels flunctuate pretty wildly and when I'm high or otherwise not in full control of my faculty, I'll eat lots and lots of sugar. And also my mood swings a lot when I'm hungry and tired and often I can barely make myself get out of the bed. Both my parents have diabetes and one of my parent has it pretty bad. I'm not in the perfect shape of my life and while I do walk like a lot lot I'm perhaps not doing enough physical activities to keep the typeII in check. We did a blood test with my parents' kit in Nepal in January, and it showed I was pre-diabetic, so it's concerning and I might have diabeetus now, gotta take care of my blood sugar now and not let it go too low lest it collapse my mood and my consciousness.

Timely golf, fruit-based lunch, nap, hang in the park with all the pals, roti-tarkari dinner and tv, late to bed and vacation day Monday [Sun 28]

 Got up at an unfortunately early 7am and couldn't go back to sleep because our golf appointment was at 10 and I didn't wan to miss that. And then when it was far too late, tried to go to sleep again because I knew the day would be fucked if I was groggy and had headache all day long.

Went golfing with BC, did couple of really good shots, and performed really poor at putting. I'm glad we're getting some putting practice, because otherwise I'd overestimate my golf capabilities because of improved driving skills.

Got home, had a couple of fruits for lunch, and napped, I literally couldn't keep my eyes open.

After I got up, showered because I stunk like a skunk and carried my new and never used-before picnic blanket to the park. Metup with the boys, hung out with them for like half an hour, and then PG and Y also showed up so I hung out with them for the rest of the time.

We were there until 6.30 ish, talked to home on my way back. Was too hungry and tired to talk to anybody, but I called and we had a phonecall for two hours. Some things need to be figured out and timeline have been given and the december deadline might be a big deal.

So anyway I didn't feel like writing or working the next day so sent an email to coworkers saying I wouldn't be showing up on Monday. Then heated up the tofu green curry which yes I still have and it was frozen it's not a big deal, with two naans in so much butter. Added shredded mozzrella to everything.

Didn't feel like sleeping despite my eyes hurting with sleep and ended up going to bed at 2.30 in the morning. Talked to international friends until then, they were pretty fun!

So Monday was off and I've come to realize maybe three-day weekends should be a thing at this point because man I can barely get any catching up of normal lifestyle in the two days. Like friday should be a 'relax from the trauma of the week' day, saturday be the party day, and sunday relax from the party day, and finally fully recharged on Monday. Sounds like something I should pursue.

Late golf, dismantling desk in UW, helping AS(y) move to CapHill, Bombay Burger lunch, writing and chill, kefir processing, buns for the party, longer than anticipated party, latenight walk, early morning hangs[Sat 27]

Got up pretty decently early in the morning as readers will remember that I went to bed outrageously early on Friday. Reached out to Sb and AS(y) for golf, AS suggested we do it at 11, so I targeted for around that time, got to the range a bit later than that. We only played a bucket worth of balls which was fine by me because I've been spending a lot more time per shot. I'll say this, my consistency has improved, and I can make the balls fly. I discovered the following day that I'm only doing half swings and not yet full swings...I think I might not yet have upper arm strength for the full swings, but I can imagine the balls going a lot further and for way longer flight time in the coming days with my half swing game improving.

After golfing AS asked me to help him dismantle his standing desk, which we spent a surprisingly short time doing, considering I'd imagined it'd take a lot more unbolting and unscrewing. Loading his belongings in the car was no big deal, we drove over to AKS(e)'s place and moved them in a few rounds. During this time I was in chats with a friend about their very traumatic pre-wedding situation that was stressing them a lot lot, and helping them work through the issue.

After the move, we went to Bombay burger where we got a burger each and a snack, AS's first time in the place, I love introducing new people to Bombay burger because it's not popular, it's cheap and the food is pretty tasty. AS dropped me home after.

In the afternoon I wrote a bunch watched tv, maybe napped a little bit. Later I processed my kefir and added whole lotta sugar to the processed product to take it to PG's party.

On the way to PG's party I also bought a couple of bao's from Regent Cafe, they're not a particularly good bakery I discovered and I gotta work on finding better places to get my yummy buns.

The party at PG's was loads of fun, I made at least one friend I think, and Y who is PG's partner is a cool person, hope to hang out with them in the coming days. I had the disgusting salad pizza with carrots and broccoli and what not, it was just...okay. And some custard bao, which was also fine if not a bit stale. The party went till 10.30 ish when the rest of the gang left. The hosting couple, myself and another friend of PG stayed downstairs in their living room until midnight. We walked to her home together, and I headed to AKS's place after because I had to take a massive dump. Smoked a bit after that and talked nonstop until 3.30 in the morning.

Fell asleep pretty quick once back home.

Slowly, slowly expanding my social circle

This is good news, but slow news. Not much substance, just a reminder to my future self that this is when I felt that things were changing for the better. Which to remind myself once again, happens every two months or so, and then there's a nonstop downward slide for another two months, and then a rapid increase in confidence, the cycle continues. If only I could reverse the trend, that would make one hell of a fiction novel. Some massive failures followed by minor successes that don't seem to matter but add up but the readers don't get to read about it.

Right, expanding my social circle.

Here's the deal, I've been meeting tonnes of people outside my old regular established social circle and expanding the group of people I hang out with. BC is the major accomplishment of course, and I've even hung out with a friend or two of hers in recent days. Also the hangs have gotten lot more frequent and regular since we started doing golf. And then there's WC who I've seen more regularly in the last one month than the year following it, which is an accomplishment too. And now I've been hanging out with PH and her bf Y, which is exciting because they're an established persons, and an opportunity to get to know more people. There's also few people from various countries that I've gotten to meet but it's unclear if that's going to help me expand my social circle and get me in a more extroverted situation socially but every lead's golden when you're working with nothing.

So things are looking on the up-and-up socially speaking though progress has been slow and gradual.

Crazy realization: I don't get the 10k steps on days I'm the busiest

 This is going to be a quick one, a simple realization that gets its own massive post because 1) I'm running out of ideas for the posts and 2) identifying the exact conditions when I can't get my steps out is important for me so I can pre-plan to get the steps out.

The observation is just what the title says: the days when I'm the most out an about, being driven about, working, helping folks and doing other physically demanding tasks are the days when I forget or get too distracted to get to 10k steps. Sometimes I think I'll get to 10k eventually because it's been a busy day but get caught off guard, and sometimes I just forget to schedule the walks and steps in the middle of everything even when there's time for me to do that. Only on very few extremely rare occasions do I actually not have enough time to get the steps out.

Which means that if there's going to be a busy day or looking to be a socially active day, I can plan ahead and make sure I get my 10k steps out before doing other activities.

Am I evangelizing Golf too much? Who even knows

 I'll come out and admit it right away, not going to hide or lie about it. I'm becoming a golf evangelist. And proudly so. Here are the facts so when you judge me you will give me greater benefit of doubt than otherwise.

First, I like golf because it's not about physical stamina or prowess. You need to have strength in your arms to hit the ball, but beyond that, you can be of any physical shape and size and age and you'd be a great golf player if you put enough dedication into the sport. I've seen old men in their seventies literally knock the ball out of the course, seven and eight year olds being trained by their dads often outperform me by a factor of ten. You gotta know the technique, you gotta practice and make those balls fly. That's what matters. It's cool because your past is mostly almost entirely irrelevant.

Second, it's as much a game of the mind as the body, if not more so. And that's because of two related but different reasons. First, you need intense focus to get your shot right. SO many of the people I talk to are like, wait what's the big deal, how hard can hitting one stupid ball with a bat be, and they're thinking about sports like baseball or cricket. Well...the balls really small and the hitting area of the bat is tiny, and you can't just hit the ball with that area, you need to connect at specific area and specific angle with specific power, and that takes a lot of focus. Not to mention the environmental conditions can change the variables, and it's really really hard to maintain a precise control of your arms. And the attention can be taken away at any point by even the most minor distraction. The second point is this: it's a form of meditative practice for sure. As in, if you're really good with meditation you'll probably do well in golf and vice versa. Because you need such a focus and dedication, you need to be in peak emotional state for every shot...you miss one and lose your mental composure and you're bound to underperform in the following shots massively. You gotta be in top emotional form for your shots to land.

Third, besides the topmost professional levels, it's a game you play against yourself than against your opponents. Basically you're your own opponent and your goal is to outperform your past record. With the concept of handicap, you basically get 'free points' against the players you're playing with, so in the end it's a competition between you and your competitors on who can outperform their past record the most, which is a wild concept and one I really appreciate.

Fourth, it's an incredible opportunity to meet people, have meetings, go out on picnics and be out and about in the sun without looking for strange excuses. The golfing itself is the excuse, and if you play it well you're all the better!

Classes ahead: planning my educational future

 Couple of classes confirmed that I'll take, and a couple of classes in the planning process. Here's my short term plans.

First, the engineering leadership with UW, that's happening freakin' finally after like six months of bothering my manager. It'll start in a month. Unfortunately I wanted to attend the classes in-person but the first course will have to be done online because I'll be in the East Coast for the festivals. But it's finally starting and I'm pumped. I'm looking forward to the education obviously and getting discounts for the golf offs and the boating etcetera, so I'll be saving a lot of monies in the activities I'm up to.

The second is of course the standup comedy course that I'm pumped up about. You can't teach art, but you can't teach the craft of creating art -- a lot of people don't need to be taught it, look at all the comedians and artists and moviemakers who never attend a day in the course of their related craft, but it still helps.

Was also planning on taking the group golf course UW was offering, the prices were super duper reasonable and I was so stoked but they got sold out extremely quickly so I'm kinda hosed on that matter. Perhaps they'll offer in November again or December, so that's something to look forward to.

Also really really want to take writing courses, somebody to guide me on my journey of writing because at this point I've gone as far as I can all by myself in my growth process and now there needs to be a guru or guide to set me on the right path. I have reached out to some folks in Kathmandu, and between the previous sentence and this I spent 40 minutes searching for writing courses here in Seattle, I think after I'm back I'll setup myself with something good and start working on the craft.

Finally I need to be in peak physical shape for...general reasons, and so I'm thinking of joining yoga and dance classes. I haven't found a good dance class that would meet my requirements, timing and generally the introductory nature it needs to be for me, but with all the guys being away soon, I'll need an occasion to find people to talk to and interact and do things with, so this is going to happen for sure, finally, freaking forever it took me to get to this place.

Ideas for my standup routine

 Idea: Make it a props based set. A large bag of chilli/chilli crisps from TJ's, a large homemade container of kefir, and something else. The chili starts the conversation about dominating and power dynamics with animals and young children and how I'm going to be eating the chilis throughout the show to establish dominance. And then eat a bunch of chillies. Then ramble a bit on chillis and stuff eating spicy food, how you can taste it twice, about my crazy relationship with chilli and how that one time, or twice or thrice, I lost all consciousness and got all numb etcetera. Then move on to the second one, the kefir one, and talk about why I started making kefir, about how I am so cheap I wanted to cut down the middle man and get a cow except I could have a cow in my apartment so I started thinking of other things that have been known to produce milk. And then I dismissed the idea immediately, not because the idea is awful and ridiculous and it wouldn't work and also are you kidding me nobody would let me have gallons of milk for less cost than what it would cost be for a gallon at TJ's, but more importantly there was another middle-'man' so to speak, and I didn't want that. And that's what led me to the google search "can men make milk", your honor.

Go back to talking about establishing dominance maybe talk about how I'm vertically and horizontally challenged and sure I have a bit of a tummy that I've been made fun of for, about pregnancy and I've tried to fix it and it never goes and it never goes it's a bit of a bummer. But that's not even the biggest kick to the extremely normal sized groin because in high school I overheard on multiple occasions -- both girls AND guys -- about how I was almost really hot...if only I had six more inches to my height. Which felt kind of like....you just had a large bag of spicy thai chilli peppers and your stomach is burning absolutely. And so now I have the chillis because this is ONE thing I'm good at. And then pretend to like really get hurt by it after eating it, and complain maybe it wasn't a good idea after all.

Speaking of other things that aren't good ideas. Well the exploration of milkmaking was not the end of that school of thought. Or is it a train of thought? A train full of schoolchildren of thought? And before I get into details about this, let me tell you I think I understand a little bit about how so many conservative folks are so afraid of gender transition and the like. It's a bit like how a lot of old folks are afraid of fluidity in sexuality, what men having sex with men, that's a cray concept who knows what might happen, kids are crazy they don't know what they're asking for, the world will go haywire, thank god I'm not young anymore, if I were a youngun now, and mind you I'm the most red-blooded straightest of men I know of, but if I was young and if things were as crazy as they are, I'd be sucking men off left and right, and I'm not even gay! That's the crazy world liberals want, where anybody can do anything they like, that's wild! [Do this in my ridiculously bad texan accent with lots of yeehaws thrown in] And then go on about how for a moment, I legitimately and genuinely thought if transitioning into a woman could save me the hassle with all the middle-women. I could milk myself for my kefir. But obviously it's a terrible idea and I don't want to judge people for their reasons to transition and it's a serious matter and so I quickly dismissed it. But not for those reasons. It turns out the economics doesn't work out, there's no way I can undercut Trader Joe's in the milk market, those monopolists have cornered the milk market by putting everybody out of business those capitalists. Hashtag late stage capitalism. Hashtag bring about socialism. Hashtag Brother Bernard 2028.

Review: The Trader Joe's Chilly and Sesame seeds snack

 So I'm very much not in the mood to write anything, anything at all, good or bad right now, for various reasons, some of which involve a friend's forced wedding and the disappointment, sadness the sense of betrayal and the general distaste of the culture and everything surrounding that come with it, and the other is another friend's unwanted pregnancy that people are taking way way too long to get solved which I fear a lot lot for all the parties concerned but here it is, here's the review of trader joe's thai chilly and sesame seeds snacks, because you fuckers like this kinda' stuff don't you, all that naughty things etcetera, oooh oooh more more you don't care what's happening out in the world, you don't give a hoot about who's getting married and who's getting pregnant you just want your goddamn trader joe's thai chilly and sesame seeds snacks, so here it is, ya fuckers!

They're chillies. They're quite spicy. As in, you'll poop very spicy poops about two or three times. And your pee will burn too. It's the spices and not because of the nasties you've been up to, one hopes. Anyway, it's not awful. If you can handle the tummy pain and the spicy poops. I wouldn't buy it again unless I was very hungry or crazy or had to impress a girl I was sure I wasn't going to have with sex later in the night because spicy things and sex is a very very very bad combo despite what modern media will have you believe. Is there taste? Yes, some. Is it good? One can say so, it's not untasty. Just like...go get a pack, it's fine you won't mind whatever, alright? Just...just...go. I don't have the energy to deal with this man, nobody does, okay?

Lazy day, ramen lunch, walkabout, volunteer walk, I try to hang but sleep way too early [Fri 26]

 Didn't get much or anything done at work, as has been usual for the past few weeks. This was the first time I realized maybe there's something wrong with me physically, is it possible that I've got diabetes and it's making me week and lazy and unmotivated? It can't be ruled out without at least considering, right?

For lunch I made ramen with the green curry tofu from the previous week, added spicy chilly flakes with oil, mozzarella cheese and fried garlic on top, yum yum yum.

After work played some age of empires, chilled, read a bunch of news and youtube, I've been watching a lot lot of youtube after getting that newpipe app...gotta curtail it, I should really make a rule about how much I need to stay away from the house, methinks. Really spend as little time in the house as possible. Gotta work on that.

Since I did a whole lotta walking during the day, I went to voluteer park, read couple of chapters of dracula, flirted with a cutie pie tarot card reader and came home. Had something good for dinner, I want to say it was...smoothie.

In the evening I wanted to write but couldn't because I was so tired, but I was gonna go to Barboza. And Sb and Aks had signed up. But it didn't work out. Because I went to sleep at like 9/9.30 etc.

Pizza lunch, volunteer-interlaken walk in the killer sun, volunteer trip, TJ"s grocery, latenight bar trip and hang, smokes and political talks with AKS, smoothie dinner [Thu 25]

 I write this on the following saturday because I couldn't be assed to write this on the very same day (also because I knew there were more things to be done). On friday I tried guys I really tried but my body really very much didn't want me to and made me go to bed at you won't believe it, 9pm, which would have been the ideal bedtime for me over the week but no during weekend when I promised friends I'd go out to have fun I go AWOL and in bed so freakin' early it's quite wild. In any case. Here. We. Go!

For lunch I had pizza. The leftover cold pizza from the day before, like some people know, cold pizza is not at all bad, it's a thing of its own and I don't mind it. Also heating pizza in a pan takes forever and 'does things' to the pie, and I don't have a microwave. Didn't want to use the airocoker which I do have because it's too powerful and it dehydrates everything.

In the afternoon I went for a walk, to Interlaken and the Volunteer, or the other way round, I forget, but it was really really hot, I was very much not feeling like completing the walk, and so ready to throw up. It took me way longer than it usually takes because of the temperatures and the motivation. It was bad people. I was reading James Acaster's scrapes book on the way, so that got me through most of it.

On the way back went into Trader Joe's and got some staples like fruits and tea, no bread or eggs because there was not enough space in the paper bags and also I was not feeling like carrying a lot. Also bought TJ's chilly and sesame seeds snack, which I mention specifically because I'll write a review of it. After hearing about capers for a bazillion years, also bought capers though I have absolutely no clue what to do with them.

After coming back, I wrote a bunch in these pages, watched tv, and made kefir banana and sugar smoothie with cocoa powder and litchi flavoring. It was a killer, really and quite filling as well. Should do those drinks more often for dinner considering how much kefir I make. Really hope they're healthy though hahah.

At night, around 10.30, headed out of the house, went to AKS's, outside, we walked all the way to the Hula area, found a bar, spent an hour and half talking and chatting most of which involved me complaining about life. Walked back, didn't want to go to ChaCha's because I was not really feeling it, so we went to his place, smoked up and I talked a bunch on Nepali politics. Came back, ate some chocolate, and went to bed.

Review: Barboza

 I've gone to Barboza a couple of times now, originally at Sk's request, and on all occasions with him but the more I go the more it's looking like we might be going there lots more often. For a couple of reasons.

First, it's a lot less uhhh let's say grimey and dive-barlike than our old favourite ChaCha's. Second, they've got way roomier place to sit down and one can always chill and talk to folks if one's not interesting in hanging or dancing. Third, there's always dance nights happening particularly in the weekends unlike ChaCha's which is a bar and nobody ever dances, ever ever. Fourth the fees are pretty low if not free on the weekends. Fifth, the crowd is way, how do I saw, less scene and more mainstream than ChaCha's and also way more relaxed. There's also many many out-of-towners in there which reduces the 'tourist' failure, plus the townies don't have their strong groups in there yet. Sixth, the music is always very white-people poppy which yes does sound like a downside and it is kinda' but also it's the sort of music you can rely on to not fail and if you're listening to all the summer hits fifty percent of the music is something you've heard before and can dance to. Also if you're tired of it, there's way less intense place upstairs. Plus people don't come try to rub against you and give you space, which is not something that can be said about a bazillion other places.

So I'm beginning to like Barboza a lot more, I bet in the coming days you'll find me appreciating this place a lot more. I write this on a Saturday and we're planning to go there this evening, so here you go. We also planned to go the night before but I slept super early oops guys that was on me, sorry sorry!

Review: Regent Cafe

 This will be quick because I didn't actually eat anything there but probably going to get dinner in the future.

The ambience is that of a casual cafe, and the prices are not outrageous, so that's already two tick ticks in my book. The servers are really young, almost like high school students, so it was kinda' funny. They also have a chinese bakery where I got the mooncake from, the only item I ordered besides ginger beer. The mooncake was great. WC ordered pork fried rice and chinese fried wings and he liked them both. Apparently they've also got red bean bun and egg yolk bun so I'm thinking there's going to be quite a few visits to this place just for the pastries if nothing else. Perhaps in the mornings they're going to have the items more fresh, because later in the day I imagine they get a bit more stale.

Leftover noodle lunch, surprise pizza double lunch, unexpected meeting, volunteer-interlaken round, writing, dessert and food with WC at Regent Cafe, Rachel's ginger beer and long convos [Wed 24]

The work was super low, spent the entire day doing basically nothing but at least I was not on the timewasting websites so feel super good about this. Man I really need to fix my sleep and work cycle, and my energy level is in a weird place, all my walks are kinda' low energy lately and I can't figure out what the hell is up. I'm thinking I'm just extremely unmotivated, or that the heat which is now in the late eighties which is quite hot for late August, is messing my groove.

For lunch I heated the leftover noodles from the night before with a bunch of mozzarella, and as always it was yum yum yum. Then a couple of hours late I see several missed calls and a text from doordash telling me there's a pizza on my way. I go down and there was a box of pizza outside the building. Turns out I'd signed up for a 'pizza meeting' several months ago for this time period and I'd completely forgotten about it. Despite not being hungry at all, I ate several slices of it and attended the meeting that came with it even though I was not planning to. Felt good, yum yum, the pizza was really juicy, I gotta order from that place again. Review incoming later.

Did the volunteer-interlaken round, the usual except the energy level was low so I kept taking rests and so it took longer than usual. Came back to my place but the heat and the energy level didn't let me enough time to clean the apartment, to invite Wc who I was going to be meeting later back in after we'd gotten dinner. So the plan was just to meet and chill elsewhere.

Met Wc at Regent cafe and he ordered dinner, I ordered mooncake. It was pretty decent, I'm not sure what mooncakes are meant to taste like but the yolk was far too salty. The red bean paste was not sweet enough. It's a decent enough place, I can check it a couple of more times for Chinese bakery. WC said his food was great. The prices were were decent, the ambience was fine. I might go there for bakery items for when I don't feel like going to Chinatown.

After Regent, we got drinks at Rachel's Gingerbeer, spent couple of hours having intense conversations, very heart to heart, funtimes were had. Man all the cute girls go in there, I gotta go there more often with other friends, or find excuses to hang more generally and talk to those cuties.

In any case, walked a couple of blocks away from there to WC's car, and wc left at elevenish. Came back, watched youtube, read stuff and went to bed at a bit after 12. I guess it was too late to go to bed which is why I slept the entire following day, but it wasn't necessary, really it's just a messed up schedule.Also the girls left for SD, they're going to be back in a week and we gotta celebrate certain birthdays.

The Unified Command meets His Majesty

 The three inspector generals and the two chiefs were in the meeting. And so was the general who was leading the unified command at the time. Everybody was nervous. They'd talked about it among themselves, but it wasn't clear what His opinion on the matter was going to be. Would he try to get rid of them, imprison them and bring somebody else to do his bidding? history suggested he was not, that he was a regular person, a civilian who had zero appetite for such violence and provocation, but one could never be sure. Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely, they knew..

The King walked in. They stood up and bowed at him.

After initial pleasantries the director of the Unified Command brought up the uncomfortable matter.

He cleared his throat.

"Your Majesty," he began, "we must take an alternative approach to the...existing situation. It is not just the provocateurs or terrorists now, there's hundreds of thousands of people of Kathmandu. And it is not good for the morale of the troops to order them to deal with justified show of force. Your Majesty, since the time of the High King your Forefather, our nation has been quite peaceful. Your late brother, His Late Majesty did propose to declare the state as a zone of peace. It is not in our nature to be overly aggressive. Even during the ongoing rebellion, while both side have seen unfortunate losses, what we have seen in terms of violence is nothing compared to other countries, even India. Even terrorists and communists with weapons are restrained in their attitude towards violence. It is not in our cultural DNA to kill people, to beat them up en masse. We are not like other countries, we are not china, we are not...other places, oppression and brutality and mass scale is not in our vocabulary. And we are quite proud of that. It is all thanks to yourself and your forefathers who have set the expectations that we, as your enforcers have followed. We cannot let the current situation continue as it is. We cannot shoot at the protestors your Majesty, we must find alternative ways to deal with the scenario. While we security chiefs have been unable to identify a good political solution, perhaps members of he Privy Council might offer alternative solutions to the matter. We acknowledge the fact that it might cause your Majesty displeasure at our failure to heed to your desires, and we have prepared a joint document of resignation in case Your Majesty wishes to replace us by those who might be able to execute your commands with greater efficiency."

The King spoke after a long pause.

"We have understood what you all are saying. We will not be accepting your resignation, it might be better in the interests of all the parties for the document to be destroyed. We will consult with the Privy Council on the matter and find political solution to the current scenario. This nation was built by my late brother and our father and forefathers, and we will not take any action to hurt the image or the sanctity of the nation. You will trust us when We state that any outcome of Our decision will be appreciated by our subjects. We want to thank you all for your comment, and want to dismiss the current meeting."

Everybody stood up. The King existed the room and everybody else waited for a few minutes to exit.

The fight against Death

 I was reminded of this in the interview of Sarah Marshall in her episode of Movies to be Buried With with Brett Goldstein. I gotta listen to that once again because it was so goddamn good.

Couple of points she brought up that were quite interesting.

First, you think in your late twenties you're at a third of your life, but time passes much much faster when you're older so in terms of experience, you're way, way past a third, possibly even half or more.

Second, most people try to 'fast forward' through life, so the life they are living isn't memorable, it doesn't register. If you're watching youtube and netflix and wasting time doing other boring random trash to kill time, you aren't living, the life doesn't 'register'. You gotta create new experiences, new memories, and go to new locations to register new memories and experiences, do new activities and get yourself excited. To live longer, to really make the most out of your life, you need to put yourself out there, get the most of your life.

That is all. That's what I gotta remember.

I gotta get out of my head and meditate and live in the physical world, talk to real people and appreciate the wonderful life I've been given on a daily basis. Gotta remember this is never going to come and it's precious.

I wasn't wrong: the most disgusting tea

As I've written in the previous posts, I like to drink tea three teabags at a time because it doesn't feel right to just one bag in a cup. So I used to do three green teabags per cup, the trader joe's green tea. And it was disgusting, really really nasty, so very bitter and no hint of flavor, not even the vaguest, and it hurt my head and hurt my tongue and messed up my mood.

I figured the white pomegranate tea was awesome, and figured the green tea would be similar, but that didn't end up working.

It wasn't just me either. I was talking to the cashier at TJ's and we got talking about our love for the various teas and we agreed how good the pomegranate white tea was and how awful the green tea was, what a stinker of an experience it is etcetera. My opinions were validated! Looked it up online, and there too people were complaining about there green tea. So that makes sense.

Gotta remember to never ever ever buy those from TJ"s again. Still have to finish the pack I do have though. Ugh, it's gonna be a choreee.

Making new friends in Seattle

 I gotta make local friends around here, homigos.

Thing is, mot of the people, and I mean pretty much everybody I know in Seattle is because of connections created in school, before college. Besides Sb of course, who is family and therefore doesn't count and wc who was my roommate in college for 3(!) years, so that cannot be counted either. My only independent connection in this town is Bc and that's a very small connection to the outside world, she herself is new to town and without too many connections etcetera, so that cannot be considered a 'thing' per se.

And WC, when I met him the other day reminded me of the 'seattle freeze' thing where you cannot really befriend people who you meet in meetups or bars etcetera because everybody gets gloomy and tired and lame and things don't workout for one reason or another. So you have to find an interest group. Such as of course what I'll be taking soon, the standup comedy class, or writing classes, or even dance classes I'm considering taking. I'm relly beginner, and by that my body is like a collection of improperly coordinated stick, but still I can improve my form and flexibility.

Make new friends, learn new skills and get myself out of the comfort zone, why would one not do this? Let's gooo.

Make Ukraine the new China

Here's an idea: make Ukraine the new China.

Don't let it be the furthest outpost of the 'West' in Eastern Europe, make it it's own thing. They've got the manpower: the trained IT people and GIS and industrial engineers and what not. They've got the natural resources. They've got the industry: see steel and defense industry and all of that. They've got the will. So why not?

Encourage construction of complex supply chains right in there. Closer to China, a much friendlier ally, plus let the peoples of the Caucasus and Russia and the Sourthern regions see what it means to be an American friend, what it means to be an open, democratic society, how it feeds to wealth. Take away the power from wealthy billionaires and autocrats: promise them a smaller portion of a much larger pie rather than very large portions of small pies they have.

They don't have the manpower? Oh that's great, for everybody's purposes. Let all the poor people from the ex-Soviet states come in, work their way up and see what becoming America's friend does to you. Let the rich Russians and the poor Russians come in and work for you too, share the wealth, grow fast, grow quick, grow together!

If that's not enough? Bring in people from all the countries Gulf countries are getting their modern slaves at, and show those people how modern countries treat their workers: with respect and dignity, and not as disposable trash whose life is insignificant. And let all those people, from the Middle East, from Caususus, from Russia and former Soviets see what freedom and democracy mean, what respect for women's rights, LGBT rights and minority rights does to a mf'er.

What better way to counter China than to have a western-style liberal democratic country growing at a rapid state. Give them hope. Hope is the counter to cynicism. China and Russia deal in cynicism and nihilism. You deal with hope and growth. You'll always win!

Dark Brandon Rises

His eyes glowing,
His hands red
His feet burning
With enemies
Underneath,
Dark Brandon Rises
Slowly from the dead
Avenging his
Fallen compadres
And standing up
For the rest.

Pushes the goddamn lever
And the oilers all flail
Yet another button
And the prices drop dead
Dark Brandon Rises
And so do his hordes
Of moms and dads
And boring young nerds
All sitting quietly
Down in their
Quiet white houses
Out in the sub-urbs.

Dark Brandon rises
Beware you all!

Chipotle lunch and dinner, lazy writing, volunteer-intelaken walk, tired and out of energy, convo with home, friend crisis [Tue 23]

 Got up tired and groggy because there was a 6am meeting, didn't do anything the entire goddamn day workwise and well...at least I didn't waste time on stupid websites, but I wasn't super productive either. Saw that chipotle had a BOGO deal after answering a couple of questions, so got two bowls of chipotle rice, had one for lunch. Is it me or are they putting in a lot less rice these days, because I remember literally being unable to finish a serving back in the day, but now it's like just about enough to be filling. After work my head started hurting and I got super tired for no good reason other than the caffeine addiction situation, so I tried sleeping it off for like an hour and then went for a walk to volunteer park and interlaken park. It was one of the most half-hearted walks I've ever had in recent memory, but on the other hand, the fact that I did it despite my mood makes me proud.

In the evening did some lazy writing, not at all met my expectations. Did some light work. Was so tired and unmotivated and confused. Then family called and talked to them for a long time. Then a good friend of mine called with a big big crisis that they revealed the nature of only an hour and a half into the conversation, encouraged them and said good things and made them feel good etcetera. For dinner I had cold chipotle, a couple of spoonfulls of it and it was fine, I didn't want to eat it.

The one shit thing I did is didn't brush or floss before going to bed. Also didn't pray during the day, gotta change that.

Otherwise, this was a low-energy day that could have gone better but I didn't mind the direction it took either way.

I should get a whole lotta plants from Amazon

Amazon has a pretty good deal on plants, that I saw on slickdeals, like six or eight plants for thirty bucks which is hella lotta cheaper than what you can get at the fancy plant shops or even QFC, so I'm thinking of buying a bunch of those. The risk is they're going to get all fucked up in the shipping and won't transition well to their new ecosystem but at that price, the risk is worth taking. The one problem with expanding my plant-baby collection is that there's not enough space on my window sill and it might soon be the time to get rid of my cardboard boxes upon whomst I put on plants and get something nicer and real. Also aware that the more plants I get, the more in love and commitment with my current place I get into, and the harder it becomes for me to move to a new place or go into long trips to the east coast or any travels basically.

But I gotta, it's so freakin' great, the bird-of-paradise plant is way way taller than me now and you now what this was kinda' sorta' the original vision of the apartment I had when I first got this place. We're getting so goddamn close to meeting it and it's blowing my mind that the dreams are coming true!

Twenty reasonable things I don't want to do this week or month or even this year

1.  Have a baby
   
   
2. Get married
   
   
3. Buy a house
   
   
4. Move places
   
   
5. Travel a lot
   
   
6. Start a company
   
   
7. Work hard and make a lot of money
   
   
8. Become a celebrity
   
   
9. Fall too much in love
   
   
10. Donate / give away all my material possessions
    
    
11. Go into a commune or a monastery
    
    
12. Island retreat
    
    
13. Train for a marathon
    
    
14. Start a religious / spiritual movement or a cult, possibly
    
    
15. Become a farmer or a related occupation
    
    
16. Get out of my current job description
    
    
17. Swim the English channel
    
    
18. Fight against a fascist state
    
    
19. Fight against voldemort's army
    
    
20. Breed super-intelligent species of dolfin
    

Crisis on the friend front

It's tricky, you know
You gotta do the right thing
And often that is
The tough thing
And people make mistakes
even when it's not their own
and when the doers are unwilling
to own up to it, and if there is
nothing else,
Somebody has to take a stand
and do things right,
Called me old fashioned
But somebody has to be the adult
Become a goddamn man
and right the wrongs
even if things might go south
in the long term.
But it's okay,
Responsibility is good
controlling damage is right
setting an example by doing
is the way to go.
So when the friend
asks you joking but not joking
about if you would do that thing
that the other person is not
willing to even consider thinking
There's only one answer
and the one final answer
Ever and always, if you wanna do the world right
And it is,
Yes I will.
I will be the man
I need to become
And do what I must
Shall the need arise.

What's a poem anyway

Is it
a poem
when there
are two
words per
line, always?
Because
If so
I'm bad
at it
I ain't
No poet,
Bro.

Chipotle things, aka I'm trapped

 Ugh.

There was a post on slickdeals about Chipotle BOGO offer, if you answered 10 questions about the company, and I spent twenty minutes doing the whole thing just to get nine dollars worth of burrito. Actually it was a rice bowl in my case this time around.

And so I had  heavy bowl of rice earlier today, so very full, don't think I'll need to eat dinner even, and also it makes sense that I'm so sleepy right now, because that was a whole lot of carbs and fats and yummy things versus a regular day. And I'll need to repeat the feat tomorrow, which seems like a bit of a challenge. Plus, I spent like ten buckaroos for a meal I wouldn't have otherwise bought during the weekday. And then finally, it was interesting that they forced me to give them my numbers and email and create an account, which means i'll be a lot more likelier to order from them versus a different outlet. Like Subway. No, I like subway, and I don't have to do BOGO with them to get a discount. Plus it's not that much tastier than subway.

Still, the company now has multiple of my phone numbers, email addresses, address and credit card number, all for the low low price of one extra rice bowl / burrito. Pretty goddamn cheap they got all that information on me!

So now I have caffeine withdrawals

 As I've written in these pages, I've gotten addicted to tea in recent days, drinking three even four bags of coffee in a cup or two. It gives me a big shot of energy in the afternoon and takes my mood remarkably high. On the downside, my mood is very suppressed in the morning when I don't want to drink tea, and on days such as today when I avoid drinking tea or I don't want to. I feel sleepy, tired and have a terrible headache. So yeah, over the course of two or three weeks, I've gone from not consuming caffeine in any form whatsoever to having caffeine withdrawals. The good news is I can time the withdrawal with getting out of the house listening to podcast so it's highly suppressed, and I'll get over it in a matter of a couple of days.

Be water, my friend: I gotta put myself more out there, in uncomfortable situations

 Reminder to self: read the Be Water My Friend book written by Bruce Lee's daughter about his attitude to life and putting yourself in uncomfortable situation.

I've noticed that I've been in outstandingly comfortable circumstances in recent times, if I'm not feeling uncomfortable, if I'm not stretching the limits of my ability to cope with changing circumstances and adapt to new conditions, I'm not learning or growing. It's nice to be comfortable but that means your adaptability goes away: aka if things don't go your way, you'll really really struggle to adapt and have a bad time. So putting one beyond one's comfort zone regularly is a good way to learn to adapt generally speaking.

I gotta do that now. For that I've decided I want to take standup class, possibly dance class and acting class as well, volunteer in local places, and just force myself to talk to people and be more comfortable around new situations. Plus learn new techniques to put myself beyond the safety of comfort zone.

More incoming.

On Praying and how I can feeeeel the difference

This one will be short because first it's a work in progress, and second I don't really want to blabber too much about things like these, but it's important so it's gotta be written down.

So I've started praying lately, not in a religious manner but in a more animistic therapeutic way. Because the world is scary and even if we believe that there is no higher power, no spirits, and we're all strictly functional physical beings, it makes a difference if for five or ten minutes a day we show humility and submit and pretend there's forces way way beyond us able to help us personally and take care and we can rest assured that we are cared for and protected. To put it in the nerdiest, lamest way possible, the placebo/nocebo effect works EVEN WHEN you know you're getting the control sample, probably and are aware of the effect. So you can lie to yourself, even if you don't believe in the whole situation, and you'll still get the benefits of belief. To put it in annoying terms, the gods really don't care who or how you worship, or how honest your belief is, as long as for whatever time you choose, you're fully committed to the prayer and reverent during the process. And that's where I'm at.

And it's made a difference. I feel lighter, more confident, happier and less stressed after praying, and it helps me figure out my daily schedule. Plus I can be a little bit flexible about my daily prayer.

As always, this is a situation in progress, more on this later.

Tea so strong I almost puked

 So this is random faff that I've felt strongly about during my days, so it might make sense to document it for posterity.

I've been making crazy-strong teas recently in hopes that it'll change me into a different person, a more motivated, hardworking and clearheaded one. I don't know if that's come around, but I'm afraid it might have caused some side effects including actually lowering my energy level when I don't have it (from the baseline) and potentially causing sleep issues etcetera. More on that in the coming days because I don't have exhaustive evidence for either side.

Either way, the other day I brewed tea with three or four teabags in a single cup and it was so nasty, particularly the green tea which caused my cuppa to be hella bitter so I had to add honey, something I never do. And the following day, I ran out of the white pomegranate tea, which made the whole thing taste even worse, so not only did I add honey but also sweet vinegar, which made it a bit more tolerable.

Earlier today I brewed more green tea, two cuppas, and only steeped for a few minutes, but still so goddamn bitter, that I had to add sugar to it, there was no way around it. Now that I'm regularly consuming green and white tea I'm wondering if I should look into black tea as well, and if adding sugar should be a regular thing, and also if I should add lactose free milk and what not. And if I've gotten that far, might as well add the standard spices and make it tasty, like they do back home? Oh god, what trap hath I fallen into?

It's a situation in progress, more on this in the coming days.

Slow and low on motivation, aborted plans, interlaken-volunteer loop, leftover ramen with mozzarella, writing [Mon 22]

 So the entire goddamn day I spent on the orange site and twitter and goddamn reddit and wasn't productive at all, specially during the working hours, I feel awful, I feel guilty, I feel like I need to take a few days off to get my mojo back. I'd say, if I were younger, my mojo is gone and there's something wrong with me, but I suspect this has to do with temporary food and sleep situation, and once I control my physical surroundings of the body, my mental state is going to recover automatically. And even if it doesn't, I shouldn't feel too guilty about the whole thing and take it easy and maybe take a day or two to relax.

Anyway, that was my workday! At 3 I was supposed to attend this mentorship meeting but their zoom link was fucked up and I couldn't get in. I brushed super duper late. Had peanut butter and honey sandwich for lunch. I don't know if people reallllly used to do PBJ sandwiches for brownbag lunch but it's my shameful meal, my 'depression chow' so to speak, in a sense that having it often makes me depressed because I think I'm not a fully functioning human being capable of feeding himself.

Aborted two plans because of my mood. Sb asked me if I wanted to join him for Cathedral yoga which I've been wanting to go for months and months and I said no, because I'd just gotten up from a nap which I hoped would fix my mood, but also because I was too low on energy. And then the gang, invited by AKS(y) went to discovery park for a chill-sesh, I didn't join because I literally told them my energy level was not upto it for the activity.

So it was a matter of great pride when I got my butt out of the house, and walked the interlaken-volunteer park loop. Standard, nothing fancy, did the lower route as usual, listened to tons of podcasts. Spent a solid 20-30 minute at the end of the journey on the top of the 'donut' overlooking the reservoir and the city. It was a moment of peace for me.

Reheated the ramen from yesterday with some mozzarella and it was so yum yum yum. Sat down to write in this blog but instead spent two hours on Youtube until finally getting around to writing these posts, which I've been doing at this point for 1 hour. Hopefully another half hour of doing it and I'll be clsoe enough to call it a day. Then brush and bedtime for me it is. So wish to wake up early and full of energy tomo.

Golfing with old and new friends, burger lunch with Sb, shoe shopping and target returns, evening walk with the girls, macaroons on the way back, incredible ramen dinner [Sun 21]

 I'm writing this the night of the following day.

Got up at the girls' place, far far too tired and not ready for the day, walked home. Got showered and rushed to get ready. At 10.10, Bc and her friend A showed up and we went to the driving range and hit a couple of dozen balls each. A is really sweet and we hit it off I think, also I might have invited them for lunch or something if we do it again next weekend, we'll see. My performance was pretty good, my 'hit rate' was in the 90% ish, and my air time has certainly improved. Yes, I didn't do distance as much as I did in the past, but my consistency has gotten a lot better.

Back home I invited Sb for lunch and then got addicted with playing AOE3, so when he came I didn't have much to show for. So we went to Bombay Burger for lunch...I got the paneer burger, he got a burger and we got chat papri. He also got salty lassi. His food wasn't great, the chat was awful, but my burger was goddamn great.

Sb returned home, I came back and chilled for a bit, certainly didn't write, don't know what else I was upto, possibly in the internet? God I hate wasting time on popular news discussion websites, I really need to hide my phone from myself during the day. Anyway I took the train to Target to return the old wrong-sized ball jar plastic caps and obtained the right sized ones. Now that I was only a few blocks away, I also went to the Nike store and bought myself a sneaker. Not the AF1 but it's in the cards, don't worry folks. Walked over to AR(e)'s place, chilled for a while, and we went walking to Olympic Park, where we were joined by S, who is AR(e)'s classmate from wayback.

By the time I dropped AR home, it was almost quarter to nine, so I walked to Westlake stop, saw a dessert store and bought 3 macaroons (2.50 each) and ate them within the next block, so good yum yum yum.

Hungry and tired at home, I made the ramen green curry as explained in the post preceding this one by two. It was insanely good. Forced myself to bed by 11.30/12 I think, though my sleep wasn't too sound for whatever reason.

Aborted walk, roti-green-curry breakfast, Nepali picnic fun, trad Nepali lunch, stuck in traffic, large gang, dance, reading in the park, nasty strong tea, smokes and latenight hang [Sat 20]

 Got up in the morning, got up to nothing good because I went to bed so late, since I was goddamn cooking the thai green curry with kefir and fried tofu and onions until 4 in the morning. Man oh man what a total and complete waste of time, I mean the not sleeping, the cooking was as I will later discover, inspired. So the morning was lazy and totally wasted on stupid websites because I was not 'feeling it'.

Around 12 ish I finally got motivated enough to head out for a walk, one that I planned to be several hours long. I'd just made it as far as six streets away when my socks bothered me...there was a hole in my sock, so I came home, changed socks and went back out. Then AKS(y) called me to ask if I wanted to go to Nepali picnic in the South of Seattle to which I said no. He called me again five minutes later to check one last time since there was a space and I agreed this time around because five hours of walking in the hot sun wasn't looking too exciting.

By the way by this time I was starving seeing as I'd gotten up early and slept late, so I warmed up two rotis and the green curry and had curry and roti for breakfast/lunch. So I was quite full. Even though we were going for a Nepali picnic.

So I sat by the fountain in the park, reading Dracula, when Sk showed up in the front with his car and I went in. AKS(y) joined us two minutes later and the four of us (who can forget M the doggo) drove towards Kent/Auburn. It should have taken us 30 minutes normally, but took us 1 hr 20 minutes thanks to the awful traffic, a few missed exits and the really really awful truck drivers who were overtaking over solid lines.

The Nepali picnic was awesome -- I've already written about the food was decent, the organization was fantastic, everybody was friendly and I actually love the Nepali community out here and want to be a part of it now! We also danced a lot.

The four of us were chilling and were later joined by another large Seattle gang folks, about 8/9 of them, and it was the ole chillin and talking and teasing each other about talking to cute girls who were dancing, like the one with the denim dress and a camera, or the one with bright pink dress and shades etcetera.

We were done with it around 4.30-5 in the evening, and drove back home, Sk left us at his place and took the doggo for a walk, I rushed home to pook. 

In the evening I wanted to go to the bollywood dance party after deciding definitely to not go, but they were sold out, so I got very high, had three teabags of green tea brewed in one cup, they tasted so gross and bitter, so I added some honey and raspberry vinegar and actually it wasn't half bad. So I got blazed and caffeinated up and walked all the way to the girls' place to possibly get ready for clubbing if the tickets opened up but they never did. So we chilled at their place...got high and watched krishna cottage, I don't remember anything because it was really complex. I was so high and sleepy I forgot to brush in the evening.

Now that I think about it, it is possible my gloomy mood two days later may have been led to by withdrawal from the weed, and the emptiness caused by not having it in my life anymore because I gave the vape and the mints to the girls, as I was done with the mind-altering substance.

The best goddamn ramen I've made: Green Thai Curry Shin Ramyun with kefir in it

 Posts of this nature have often gone into the journal section because I don't like writing about what an awesome cook I am -- I'm not, by the way -- or write about food that tasted great once because of the circumstances surrounding the meal but tasted awful later. There's a lot of variability around amateur cooking and it's a complicated matter to call any individual dish great on a single attempt.

But maaan, I made a great fucking fantastic green thai curry shin ramyun dish yesterday, and had leftovers, which I headed with large chunks of mozzarella earlier this evening and this is not too much of an exaggeration when I say: it was heaven. Really, truly.

All I did was, boil some water. Put shin ramyun in the green curry i'd cooked, along with the dehydrated veggies that come in the pack, vinegar nd soy sauce, plus a little bit of sichuan pepper because it hurt nobody. And of course fried garlic at the end. Also lots of oil, vegetable oil as well as sesame oil in the end. Possibly tahini too, though I don't clearly remember.

It was heaven, it really was. The Thai curry I'd cooked with kefir in it instead of coconut milk and it's definitely not as mild and creamy as they have it, it's actually quite salty and spicy because I clearly used way more of the paste than is recommended, but perhaps I've accidentally created a mother sauce that can be used in anything now?

Some more points: the idea of putting tofu in it was genius, it tastes incredible, I gotta cook more, LOTS more with tofu and mushrooms, yum yum yum. Partly cooked mozzarella tastes a lot like meat and adds an interesting texture to cooked vegetarian food and one must try to incorporate it in dishes like these even as an experiment.

Good times. Gooood times!

Work emptiness is getting rough, I should take some time off

 This is something I've complained in these pages far too often, and always on a schedule it seems like, but here it is, here's that time of the year. Here. We. Go.

I've been feeling extremely unmotivated, tired and empty at work, and have been getting basically nothing done. And I've even stopped pretending to care about the whole situation, which is not a great place to be. I gotta find myself something to get motivated again, light that fire and get it going, because otherwise I'm rocking' the whole thing and I was actually getting quite career-oriented, if I may say so myself.

So yeah, there's a lot of work to do, and I gotta do it, and make myself motivated enough to look into it, instead of just sleeping and chilling and not doing much.

Dear gods, gimme the strength and motivation.

I'm kinda stuck with my stupid, awesome apartment

This is going to sound crazy but here it goes anyway.

After my visa situation is figured out, which could be any day or week now, I'm planning on going to Ktm to get my visa renewed -- I know the waiting times are at 400+ days right now but I'll get the emergency appointment. And then the idea is to visit Europe, ideally a couple of months somewhere in Portugal or UK or wherever, particularly fond of Lisbon right now, everybody's saying great things about the place. Lots of Nepalis, lots of Americans, and of course lots of Portugese, and also affordable, nice and friendly place.

In case the Europe plan doesn't work out, I could also take a couple of months doing working vacation, going to different places staying at AirBnb's or hostels and traveling after work. It'd be cool and I'd get to see the country in a whole different light.

The problem -- and I've warned you this is going to be a stupid one so don't look at me like I'm an idiot -- is what to do about my apartment.

See, my apartment is cheap enough that I don't want to let go of it because it'd be pretty tricky to find something in a similar location at a similar price range. I know newer residents of this building are already paying a couple of hundos more than I currently do anyway. However, it's definitely not cheap enough for me to pay the rent for several months without actually living in it. Four months worth of rent is like a LOT of money.

Which brings up a conundrum.

I could leave the place and have lots of fun and save all that money for the rent and spend in travel and accommodations, but when I come back I'll have no place to stay, and when I do find a new apartment, I'll have to pay lots of money. If I leave the place, then I'll also have to reset the whole place, and moving to a new place is always harder than you think and you can take months to properly 'feel at home' in it. And then there's the matter of what I do with my belongings. i could get rid of them because they're not too pricey but then starting from scratch will be a pain. i could put them in the storage but I'd have to use helpers moving out and moving in to a new place, and that adds up the cost. Plus, where would I move to anyway?

The most ideal situation for me would be to sublet the apartment so I can leave it in trusty hands without having to worry about the money, and come back to the same ole' place without worrying about the logistics of it. But where to find such a reliable person? What if they mess shit up, what if they refuse to leave, what if they create problems? Man, subletting WOULD solve a lot of my problems. Wonder where I can look for leasees.

So I'm now stuck with my stupid awesome apartment.

My new kit plans

I got new shoes!

Sb went to the Nike store and got himself Af1, I went the following day but they didn't have AF1 in my size so I got one of them retro shoes, colorful one, that's in my size. Because I wanted AF1 but the one they had was far too tight for me.

I'm going to eventually buy an AF1 with the right size, we'll see when.

And I wore it right out of the store (well, at AR's place, but still) because I was so embarrassed how everybody else had really fancy Nike's on AT the store while I had a pair of dusty ratty slip-ons that I've walked approximately a bazillion miles on.

The shoe's comfortable, it looks way nicer and it wasn't super duper expensive -- though by far the priciest pair of shoes I've bought for myself.

The next purchase is going to be an AF1, and then perhaps a slip-on too.

Exciting times shoe-wise!

PBH lunch, smokes, friendly call, lazy no writing, waiting for plan, overcaffeinated, texas toast dinner, cooking at 4am [Fri 19]

 The work was lazy, one-on-one with manager went well, I slept most of the morning.

After lunch I played a game of Age of Empires, it was really frustrating and not very rewarding, I don't know the shortcuts, I don't know the tactics, and I don't know the game engine, nor do I particularly enjoy the whole experience. I should just be reading fun books instead of playing video games honestly.

For lunch I had peanut butter and honey because I was not feeling it. Smoked a bit by which I mean a tonnne and took photos of weird smoke patterns against the evening sun and sent it to people. Then went for a walk. Then came back because there was a hole in my sock and it was really bothering me, changed it and went back again. And I went all the way to volunteer park took a round or two and came back mostly because I was feeling high and didn't have the drive but also because I was talking to AR(y) and she said we had a plan. Spoiler: we didn't.

So anyway I had like four teabags worth of tea and caffeine in the afternoon, so for dinner I made texas toast, and couldn't go to sleep until very late. The reason I didn't go out dancing with friends is because I was waiting for the R's to show up and they never did because other plans etc etc.

So I got bored and hungry enough that I made a green thai curry with tofu at 4 in the morning. I imagine I wanted to eat it at some point, but I didn't feel like it, so I poured it into a different dish, and went to sleep. Just like that. Latenight cooking and no eating. Fuuuun!

Not great chip butty sammich with cheese on ketchup and kefir cheese for lunch, timed park trip, missing the concert and plant share, target mistaken, work nook, writing [Thu 18]

 After work for lunch I made this awful creation: two slices of bread with so much mozzarella in them, with the crappy fries from Elysian as the filling. And because I was so embarrassed by the whole situation, drenched on the outside with my ketchup-kefir-cheese mixture. Let's just say there were multiple things wrong with this sandwich, the major of which was soaking a crispy sandwich in liquid. Never ever do that unless you know what you're doing, even if you know for sure the fillings are bad and you're doing this just to fill less guilty about wasting really bad food.

I headed out of the house after popping in two mints, for a round of rapid walk, to estimate how long the entire arb-interlaken-volunteer circle takes me. It takes me about 2.20-2.30, without going to the pointy bits, I discovered. And during it I also saw the Thursday concert in the park, which I had to miss because I had two other things to do: go to target to pick up plastic lids of ball jars, and go to Optimism brewery for a plant share event.

It was very very hot. I took the train from the CapHill stop to target, took some time to show them the receipt, and even before I took the lids I knew I dun goofed up because the lids were way smaller than what I was expecting. I'd ordered the wrong item! Felt too bad about it, didn't have the energy to go to plant share event anymore, also the day was hella hot and humid, so took the train back to caphill, came home, watered my plants,and created a return label for the item as well as ordered a new item that I need to go pickup.

Wrote a bunch, bunch bunch in the evening, felt very productive, and also created a work nook with the new work table that I'd ordered. It came in, and now I have a small table in the corner of the room, away from the funsies of the mattress and table and tv, where all I intend to do is write and read and be like, a, smart person.

Nepali community Seattle

 A couple of folks and I, mostly dudes by a large majority, went to Kent, WA to attend the Seattle Area Nepali Community Picnic where they had free Nepali food (!) including goat meat, watermelon, bingo, lots of dancing to Nepali music and stalls for other various Nepali organizations, including a Nepali hikers groups in the region, which turns out is quite large. Not that it's a surprise, we are naturally inclined to climb mountains I want to say, and it'd probably backed by the fact that the way it was there, most active members of the groups were middle-aged uncles and aunties, my parents' age, who I bet would kick my ass in hiking.

And we danced to a bunch of Nepali songs in the round ringa-ringa-ring, there were a tonnne of cuties who were Nepali who probably came with their fam and weren't married that we looked at and didn't talk to because the cutie wearing the denim dress with the nice camera left way early even though she was the one who invited us to dance and yes G was interested in the girl in shades with really bright pink dress on and there was literally zero reason for him to not go and talk to her but ah I guess that's how things are. Next Sunday at Volunteer Park they're doing an event and I'm thinking of showing up with my picnic blanket and reader and drinks and being a part of the party too.

All in all, everything considered, I rather liked the group here in Seattle, of course they have found themselves in their present situation under very different circumstances from where we started from, and they've adapted differently, and in the past, a very recent one too, I'd have been quite judgmental -- rightly for my sake, if I may say so -- and considered it a bit 'too much', and said that when I'm in presence of too toooo many Nepalis I have trouble breathing. Which might still be true, maybe in a presence of certain kind of Nepalis in large enough numbers my anxiety has a dampening effect on my breathing, but this group was extremely chill, manageable, they didn't do the 'chief guest speech' bs, there was very little wasting time and faffing about, the event was very well organized and coordinated and I really liked the whole vibe. Something I haven't claimed before, so this is definitely, so to speak, hot off the presses.

I liked the vibe of the Nepali Community Seattle organized group and I'm looking forward to attending their future events, including possibly hiking with large groups in the future.