Twenty things going on or whatever

1. Ice cream sundaes at work
2. messed-up sleep cycle
3. so many retired older folks in my classes but zero young 'uns
4. fear of knee pain
5. literal human shit on the ground on the way to the office
6. eating outside far too much
7. avoiding doing dishes for days
8. illustrating out of boredom, despite having much else to do
9. avoiding yoga for the moment
10. generating your vision of the future and acting on it
11. catching up with old friends, feeling great about it
12. alaska, want to go there soon
13. losing faith in some people because their internal state seems highly variable, seemingly chaotic
14. Green tea as treatment to most ailments.
15. Deciding to finally grow mushrooms, why not
16. plants that need low light for the restroom
17. kandinsky style line and plane art for the local art gallery, or donation to a foundation
18. running away from paparazzi
19. fertilizer rebranded as 'plant food' which is technically untrue
20. time to start a reading group?
    

The anxiety within

 Because workouts, yoga and walks have been reduced significantly...I've been feeling random bouts of anxiety. I kind of miss it, because it's mostly beyond my control. Over the last few years I'd almost forgotten what fear and consistent random generalized anxiety felt like. Now I know, and let's be clear it ain't no fun. But that makes one open tot he possibility of being friends with people in a similar situation even if the details are different. The anxiety makes me nervous, and lacking in confidence. As a result, no workout or walks happens, and the vicious cycle continues. For who knows how many days in a row today I didn't go out on a walk. It's just so miserable, this lifestyle. I don't approve, nuh uh!

Need to be serious about writing: a poem

It is no fun when you don't know the direction,
not just of your poem but your whole vision,
so you stumble and fall, confused and dazed
unsure where to go next, where to look straight
write, write, write, so is the instruction,
but never once said or explained precisely
is 'what', and 'to what end', just always blithely,
and I wonder where I'm headed and if it's worth it,
the discipline is nice, thank you very much
but I can make myself sit on the chair for thirty minutes
the point should be to have an output worth sharing
and tell the world what has been learned over the years
where are the lessons I have taken, oh and
what do we say about how we've grown
through the years?

My fingers will keep writing, on and on,
and my brain will try to escape, not very well,
one day surely we'll get a clear understanding
of where this 'art project' will be going.
Well until then madams and sirs, allow me to indulge
in the most bizzarre instruction set
for a city to run it's millyet ring
to tell everybody when the time will be safe
and to safely hide in their houses in the times rest,
it's important because the other side
had discovered the abandoned prince
but had failed to start up a good fight.
There was tension, or so much, but what a pity
the card won't come through.

So now father and sun, sharing the prison weapon
dream of better days, with the trees and the bees,
To go out in the park and dance in joy
but will there be enough response, or is the current situation,
produce less but still be zero-indexed late.

Review of From Shiva to Shankara by Devdutt Pattnaik

I recently began and completed From Shiva to Shankara book by Devdutt Pattnaik. I read part of the book, and listened to part of it as an audiobook thanks to the reader app on android. Quick review.

The book won't be new material to a student of Shiva philosophy. It contains 'selected and abridged' stories of Shiva from various sources, threaded by common themes. The gist of the book is a journey of how the lord's transformation from an ascetic to a householder happened. It also explores how an abstract concept an entity eventually developed a form, an icon, that could be worshipped.

I love the book, it's so simple and quick to read. While some of the tales are absurdly abridged to the point of confusion, they do give a general sense of the themes involved. The illustrations are super duper cute, and the tables sprinkled throughout to help reader distinguish between competing concepts was inspired. This was my first cover-to-cover book by Pattnaik, and I'm much smarter after reading it.

Strong recommendation to anybody interested in learning more about Shiva. I would give the book 9 out of ten stars.

Fried rice breakfast, oats lunch, art class, lots of writing, feeling unsettled and didn't walk [Mon 24]

tired morning, tj's rice, kimchi and eggs for breakfast, oats for khaja, sandwich for dinner, art class, serious writing, not enough walking, is something wrong?

It's late at night on Wednesday as I write it. After procrastinating for six or seven hours, when I started and finished a book, did some illustrating, but not cleaning, I'm finally down to writing. I've promised myself, these six posts and I go to bed. Otherwise, no sleep. So let's crack on!

Something is up, unclear what it is.

I woke up tired and stumbled into work. The day was productive but I felt too tired. Had Trader Joe's fried rice with eggs and kimchi for lunch. Went to the art class where we drew pine cones, I was shit at it. Back home I had oats for khaja, and then wrote so much. 20 posts in fact. Had sandwich for dinner. Three breads. The radio didn't scale, yuck. Didn't do much walking or meditation or other forms of self-care. Something is not right.

Going to the office with no home internet was the best!

My home internet stopped working for several hours earlier today. I went to work instead. It was quite relaxing actually, the ritual, the walk, the work, the walk back. Totally unplanned and oh so zen. Because I didn't plan on doing it -- my hand was forced, I didn't feel tired or annoyed. Just accepted my fate, and was happy about the whole situation. Productivity was quite high too.

I should do this more often. Every day, in fact, apart from Mondays. When I should go to the local college to work from. Why don't I do it that way, again?

Really, makes one wonder...

The new batch of chhyang, a quick review

 I had the new batch of chhyang with friends. First response: overfermented because I've gotten lazy with not bottling them on time. The backsweetening helped a bunch, but not enough. To avoid the rank booze smell I must add sugar and stop ferment in 3 weeks. It's not bad, just a bit extra boozy and hot.

The batch with red rice yeast definitely tastes different. It's not necessarily good or bad, it's different. It's more sour, more uhh interesting. Can't quite define it. The color adds an interesting dimension to the drink, and sets up expectations on the drinker. It can be favourably compared to a less-mature rose.

The biggest lesson from this batch was not to be lazy to bottle my booze. Not a new discovery, though an important reminder about one of the more fun things I do!

Relaxing shopping trip: target, uniqlo, h-mart and korean dog after so long

Something was in the air today. Perhaps it was the summer freshness. I felt good, ready to make the world my oyster. I went to my favourite shopping spots after work. I casually strolled around Target and bought myself a jar of nuts. It's not a big deal by itself, but the act of going to Target once again has unraveled something inside me. From there I went to H-Mart where I discovered the prices had gotten to reasonable levels. See the previous post for more context. Uniqlo, which I visited next, hadn't changed much since my last visit. The T-shirts were on discount but they weren't my style. I stopped by the korean hot-dog store at the end of my walk back home. There I ordered a mozarella-noodle dog and had it with seven different spices and sauces. Yum yum yum.

I hadn't had a day out in town since forever. I feel good. Free. Not tethered. The summer is upon us, it's time to live. We must enjoy our lives out in the precious Sun. All is well and it shall always and forever be so, eventually.

I was kimchi ripped! Prices are reasonable now!

In the past I have freaked out about the price of kimchi at the local H-Mart. I checked out the prices earlier today. They appear to have gone down significantly! Even if the sizes are smaller, the prices I paid for them last year were unreasonably huge. This time around, it was so approachable. I'm glad sanity is returning to grocery supplies. It's slightly annoying as I've already bought a large jar of kimchi from weee, so there was no benefiting from the affordable jars. I'm all set for future though.

Daytime rest, friend hangs and cards at greenlake, tofu dinner at new Chinese restaurant [Sun 23]

daytime rest, annoyance at the kitchen situation, roti-anda lunch, more rest, showers and greenlake trip, meeting up with old and new friends, playing cards, new Chinese restaurant for dinner, mapo tofu, can't sleep until late evening

I write this on Tuesday evening. This has been pushed out by five hours. At least it's not been a total waste. Yoga time is getting nearer. Good things are gonna happen. No cause for fear, dear.

I got up pretty late because there was so much happening and I couldn't make myself to leave the bed. Also I was kinda pissed at the dirty dishes in the kitchen sink. Had some food of roti and andaa cooked by AS for lunch. Chilled more, showered, tried writing but instead just listened to so many songs.

Eventually got my chhyang ready and took the train to Greenlake. There I did some illustrations until SA and BB and their partners and J arrived. We sat by the trees next to the lake, and played cards, got caught up yadda yada yadda. We played one of the card games with really stupid rules because we couldn't figure them out. It made zero sense.

For dinner we went to the Ling restaurant I reviewed earlier. It was decent, I had mapo tofu. Talked a bunch, I invited the gang for dinner on Friday. Came home, talked to a new friend, and slept very late at night. My sleep's all fucked up. That's probably why I have anxiety etcetera.

Too many feely songs- a listening

I listen to too many songs from my youth and get carried away for far too long.

I've never seen listening to music as an activity requiring active participation. People usually put it on the background as they do other chores, or to 'get inspired'. That is my understanding. It is probably incorrect. For I have a 'music listening' dedicated time. I go to youtube to put on background music as I write. Three hours later I'm all emotioned up, having listened to dozens of songs. Full of energy and vigor, I decide I don't want to write at the moment. The songs soaked up all my energy.

No, I don't listen 'listen' to songs. It just happens that when I hear songs, I tend to feel them quite strongly. The feeling is enjoyable, sure, but it is not preferable. I'd rather write meanwhile, or read, or listen to something less moving, in the background.

It's a pity my music choices have limited my uhh station in life. I listen to old hindi or Nepali songs, and some very classic english ones. If I could learn to like hip-hop or r&b and so forth, options would expand. Even if it's just Taylor Swift. It is not to be so, unfortunately.

It's okay to listen to songs, not just when I'm meant to be writing. That is all.

Ohh (id) card, where art thou!

My yoga plans have been disrupted this week for the silliest of reasons: I couldn't find my husky card. I looked all inside and outside my apartment and couldn't find it. I was stressed, a bit anxious. Disappointed at my self. I was getting nothing, after all of this. I had been unchanging, the same old person of yore after all. That's what I figured. And then oh I found my UW card under a coaster right next to my keyboard. Silly, silly me!

Then there's the tale of my work ID. I had to get a new one made because I misplaced the old one. I was confused like hell where it could have possibly gone. I discovered it inside the pocket of my Uniqlo puffy jacket the other day. So. Silly.

I guess things are fine now, everything is hunky-dory etcetera.

I'll go to the gym tomorrow, order has been restored in the Universe, so to speak.

All I ask, lord, is wealth, health and popularity

Lord, I don't ask for much,
I your humble son,
a worthy servant,
you are the master of the limitless,
do bless me
with what meager I ask for.

Lord bless me with a billion bucks
and a nice house and a yacht too
a gulfstream to go along with all
would only be the right thing to do
Lord give me skin as healthy as a baby's,
and memory longer than elephant's,
lord make my organs stronger than the warriors
and my mind stronger than the saints'!

Lord, give me fame
so the whole world may know my name,
and what a humble servant I have been,
lord give me social currency
so I may spread your greatness
all across the great message chain!

Surely, just by the numbers, should I meet thee

Surely, this must be a fact of nature
that just by the sheer law of large numbers
it's likely we shall soon meet
under the right circumstances of need.

Surely the fates, tilted against me in this sense
aren't conspiring on me against the rules of the run,
it's just a matter of time, now or soon
that we will finally be together
like the sun and the moon
in the morning sky.

Oh look,
The sun's out in the day,
and the moon's realm lays at night,
and yet at dusk and at dawn,
they get together,
the cool moon and the fierce Sun,
so if forces so far apart
can find common ground
it's quite a certainty dear
that we too shall find
each other
in the near future.

Hurricane ridge hike, boardgame azul with friends, heavenly taco bell, Nepali group fun [Sat 22]

early to wake, picked up, olympic drive, ferry and mcd breakfast, 8 miles of decent hike, leg hurty, tired drive back, taco bell snack, waiting for the return ferry, early to evening party, board games and dinner at J's place, train home extremely late

Still writing this on Monday, but we've written so much today! Progress has been made!

Woke up at 5am and spent 30 minutes getting ready. PS and the gang picked me up and we were on our way to Olympic NP! We took the Ferry...the wait wasn't long at all we basically drive in. Stopped by a mcd and I got the bagel-egg-cheese sandwich, with apple pie for dessert. At six bucks it was pretty decent. Prices are high but ah that's the world of '24. We got to the park at 9.20 -- after waiting for 15 minutes in the queue. Our Nepali group took about 45 minutes to setup. We did the Hurricane Ridge trail. Took us about 4 hours for 8 mile hike. The top was fine, the route was a little trickier than I had expected. Nothing hard though. My knees might just have broke again.

We chilled, talked to the organizers as it started raining and drove back. I felt lightheaded and ill. Had to stop by a taco bell where I ordered two cheese rice and beans burritos with potatoes. It was $4.50 total and ugh, so. freaking. good. Heavenly at the time. They should put me on their ads! We waited for an hour for the Edmunds ferry, gassed up at Costco. They dropped me off at roosevelt.

Had to wait for almost 40 minutes for the rest of the gang to show up. Let's just say I got there before my hosts did. Whatever.

We played Azul the board game and it was quite fun! Got dinner from thrapachan thai, it was just meh. The group disbanded at around 10.45, AY and I took the train home. I walked her to her place and came back. So tired, I spent like an hour on snapchat talking to friends and went to sleep. It had been a long and very tiring day.

A review of Lin Handmade Dumplings restaurant

 We went to Lin Handmade Dumplings which is a Chinese restaurant near Green Lake. I got mapo tofu and rice there. Quick review.

The prices are decent. I paid $20 with taxes and tips included, which is fine for Seattle, it was a sit-down place. We ordered online, I've come to prefer that over talking to somebody. Their ambience was pretty good, and the staff were friendly. Mapo tofu was to die for. I said I could eat the same meal twice daily for the rest of my life. No lie there.

The restrooms were so so nice. Tables were clean, the vibe was chill. Place was new so not much crowd there despite being a weekend.

8.5 out of ten stars, would very much go there. Never to the stupid Duke's Seafood again anyway.

A bit more on board games and card games

I wrote about a dozen posts (1.5 hours) ago about how I'm so bad at reading rules for board games. But I've been playing them nonetheless and enjoying them. The joke I make is there's always two plays involved: one's the play of the game, playing the cards you are dealt with or your pieces, whatever. Then there's the meta-game...the game of talking strategies, cheating and acting around the board. I tend to enjoy the meta of the game more than the actual gameplay. I give my strategies away and often that will put me at an disadvantage. But that's not the point of the play! We played heart-attack the card game at Green Lake with BB SA and their partners. BB and his partner were 'first' to 'win'. They had to wait for the next 30 minutes watch everybody else avoid losing. I told them later it's a silly game to want to win, because you're out early on. True enjoyment comes from staying in the game believably long enough, and tapping out when you're tired.

So many little strategies here and there. One must not confuse the meta and the real play. Skills in one are not transferable to the other necessarily. However, they're not mutually exclusive either. One must independently evaluate the benefits of strategies for each kind of play, and decide on the appropriate strategy.

All of it could have been said about life too. Wonder what lessons I can take from the distinction between play and meta-play...

Air conditioner considerations

Summer is here, my apartment often feels like an oven. I've invited friends over on Friday for dinner. They might feel oppressively hot. Seeing as I want to be hosting people here, thinking about getting a portable AC unit. There's the whole single vs. double ducted thing that I don't fully understand. People on slickdeals seem to think single-ducted ones are pointless. Seeing that paying $500 for a window unit doesn't seem reasonable, I'm seriously considering spending $200 on a single-duct unit. The efficiency is sort of besides the point if it enables productivity and socialization during the worst of summer months.

But still, $200 is a lot of money, and I won't be using the unit after a year. It will be a 'disposable' item. With that in mind, there are pros an cons of getting it. I'm not sure where the decision will end up at. Thinking of calling my parents to ask for advice.

Don't know, might just make the jump one of those days.

Preserving my herbs in a sweet, acidified drink mix

 My herbs -- mostly basil and peppermint -- have grown massive in the hydroponic system. They're drinking like two liters of water every week. Don't understand where all that liquid ends up at. I'm impressed. Regardless, there was no reasonable way to consume it all. The last round's pesto sauce was just...ok. Plus I didn't have nuts at the moment.

So i blitzed the herbs --steps and all -- with lots and lots of sugar and some kombucha and stored it in the fridge. The idea is that kombucha and sugar won't let the mixture go off color or get disgusting. I can add this concentrate to my everyday tea or lemonade and feel refreshed. If this works out as well as imagined, this could be a year-round thing! What a great use of the herbs it will be!

Fingers crossed.

Still need to make sure the other herbs are thriving, and I'm not just 'cheating' with the easiest herbs that can be grown. Must get more serious about the whole personal-hydroponics thing. Yes, I understand it's mostly marketing. I enjoy it nonetheless and that's what's important.

Body hungover, sleep deprivation, work drive, tofu in sandwich, unproductive personally [Fri 21]

Super short hours of sleep, easy work, AS arrives, drive to work and coffee making, sandwich for early dinner with tofu and horseradish sauce, not much walking, no writing, early to bed for the long hike but not really

It's still Monday as this gets written, we're getting caught up so soon!

I didn't get much sleep on Friday morning, as I'd gone to bed at 2am and woke up for work at 6. Work was highly productive as it was easy and practical to keep track of.

Didn't have anything for breakfast or lunch because the booze from the night before had filled me up. My body felt exhausted but fortunately no hangover. Still I slept for huge parts of the day.

In the evening AS arrived, and we drove to the office so I could tap in. Also made AS a nice latte. One plan was to pick up his cousin and visit cool places in town. Didn't end up happening, he didn't really wanna see his sister. We found a great parking spot, went to the Chinese place for donuts but they were closed. At home I made dinner with ezekiel bread, cheese tomatoes and tofu and horseradish sauce added. Yum. The addition of tofu was inspired, really!

I should have slept by 10, but kept chatting and wasting time in the heat until midnight. Just after I went to sleep, AS went out to hang out with friends. So rude!

Review of Thrapachan thai restaurant

This will be quick. I was at SA's place the other night and we ordered in from Thrapachan thai restaurant. Quick review.

I ordered their spicy basil tofu with rice. I couldn't taste the spicy, or the basil, so it was tofu and rice. I paid a little more than 20 bucks for it. There was no flavor in the vegetable: the rice was more flavorful. If I had paid eight bucks for the meal, that would have been a fair deal. To pay that much more money, and get such crap grub was disappointing. Perhaps we'd have been better served in-restaurant. Maybe I ordered the wrong kind of item. But you can't just say 'ohh we make awful vegetarian dishes'! I did NOT like the restaurant's offerings at all.

I give it four out of ten stars. Passing grade in Nepal, but ugh, you wouldn't want to trust a doctor with those grades. Only if your other option was starving.

Art class is so big now, wow

The art class I've been taking for three times now has grown this quarter! Whereas in the previous quarters we had five or six or seven students, we had twelve or thirteen students this quarter earlier today. That's more than twice our regular class size! It's cool because the more students there are (upto a limit), the more you hear, and the more you learn. One's social network grows that way as well. The actual illustration was crap today, but it's okay I'm happy for the instructor as she's probably getting paid a lot more!

Yakkin' away, yakk yakk, and the riches of embarrassment

Friend BB and his partner are in town. I hung out with them at Green Lake last evening. The first thing I said was, oh yeah I remember meeting you in Boston. With your parents. I'm so sorry for being so talkative. It was such an embarrassing thing.

I get super-duper hyper when I meet people who I agree with. I will talk for hours and hours. That's what I did with BB's parents five or six years ago. So cringey. It's not like I'm a talkative person, generally. But when I'm excited, or feel comfortable, all the bets are off. And hoo boy, were they at that time.

I need to control my talkativeness problem. The root issue at heart is that I don't have people to talk to generally, so it all comes pouring out when I find someone. But uhhh that's kinda an unrelated problem, and it's uhh not going to be solved in the foreseeable future. So better get skilled at keeping my goddamn blahblahbox shut.

I need to get better at communication and confrontation: the dishes issue

Quick moan here, I'm running out of ideas to write on. This is also an issue I've been thinking about a bit recently. I've written in the past about how pathetically poor I'm at confrontation. Even if it means I lose on something big. For sometime now I've tried to frame it as a communications issue. That understanding has helped me make my point more clear to other parties. But some issues remain. Here's one.

On the weekends I'm often out. It's summer and people are doing something or the other. If I have done my dishes before Friday, then there's no dishes to clean until midweek next week. That's relaxing. Where this falls apart however is when people are crashing at my place. They will have their meals, and put their plates on the sink. Which is nice of them. But they don't clean it, or start the dishwasher. Come Monday or tuesday, I end up having to do a big load of dishwashing. Cleaning other people's dishes is no fun. Specially when one happens to have done a favor for them?

It's on me, I know. I should have set clearly communicated boundaries on the dish situation. It should have been known that the dishwasher is broken. And that if their dishes are not done, I don't feel motivated to work in the kitchen. But ugh, it feels weird. Specially because the dynamic is already set.

I'm such a shit negotiator. If I want to be a team leader, or lead companies etcetera, gotta be better at this!

Celebrating summer solstice with drinks, relaxing volunteer park walk, oats with tofu-dal, regular sandwich dinner [Thu 20]

oats-dal-tarkari for lunch, nice relaxing evening walk in the park, amazing sandwiches with cheese and tomatoes once again, latenight drinks at multiple places including taco borracho with friend Ap, celebrating summer solstice

This is still the evening of the following Monday. I wrote a boatload of posts (20) on this day (Thurs) and now doing even more on Monday. What a miserable unrewarding experience I have turned my hobby of writing into. All I get is anxiety and frustration. Regardless, let's crack on!

This was the longest day of the year, and I'm happy to report that I celebrated it in an enjoyable manner! I had dal and tofu tarkari with oats because I ran out of the quinoa grains. Work was pretty goshdarned satisfying, and I got quite a decent amount of writing in these very pages.

Went to the volunteer park, relaxing walk while listening to ken albala's book and having a chill time in general. Got back and had the most amazing sandwich with ezekiel bread, cheese and tomatoes -- my standard fare.

I'd asked friend AP if she wanted to hang, and she said okay. So we went to a bar near her place, ordered a pitcher and a full item between the two of us. We finished the pitcher and drank another drink of beer each. It had been a long time since I'd had beer to drink like this. I didn't feel drunk, but it was tiring for the body. It wasn't a good idea but hey, longest day of the year doesn't happen a lot!

We then went to Nacho Borracho where we kept talking until wee hours of the morning and fighting. I came home, drank a strong drink of tea for the next morning, and slept around 2am. First meeting the following day was 4 hours away!

Chyang and drinks, and future possibilities

On Saturday (21st) we went to Olympic National park. I talked to the organizers, we discussed my hobbies. They suggested if I might be able to brew my brews for their crowd in one of the larger events. That is such an honor. I have lived all my life for it. At this pace my learning and exploration with chhyang is going to be quite slow. There's not enough people to drink, not enough motivation to make, not even drive to do it in volume. If I'm making for hundreds of people, however, the scale changes. Not just that, I'll have to think about the end-use experience. What are they expecting? Will I be able to give them what I want? If not, how do we shape expectations? how do we change the final product according to their tastes. These questions and attempts at answering them will allow me to improve my fermentation techniques.

Going commercial is a faraway goal for me. Getting anything at scale is challenging, specially when your potential market is so small. But if somebody gives me the platform to practice my hobbies...yes please, I'd like that very much.

Chhyang and tongba production at scale might be coming in the near future!

The work mindset change

Only three or four posts ago (twenty minutes in my current pace) I wrote about how my work experience the last few weeks has been amazing. How I feel about work appears to depend on what I do. If it's immediately visible and easy, I love it. If it's seen as pointless, I don't care at all. Specially if the nuances are nonsensical unimportant technicalities of a system i don't know, the task is particularly burdensome.

The idea that I need to reshape my work, so my attitude will eventually change too, has been taking hold. It's a vicious circle of course, but one must start somewhere. How do I be more happy, be more driven, and get more rewarding in work? What motivates me? How might I shape the structure of my job so they will allow me to do things that motivates me more? I know that things that are at higher level are encouraging. I actually have a vision for things, and desire to be executing the vision.

What is required is flexibility, and courage. I'm a rat, a mice, that ain't gonna work. I need to be honest about those eight hours, and spend the hours I'm not working for them to work on myself. Become a more driven person, a smarter employee. Create content for my future career that will also work for my current one.

Planning is not enough. It's not even a start. What is required is clear-sighted execution.

Public transport to the pacific? Considerations and plans

I saw a post on reddit today about how this guy went to La Push by public transport. La Push is a beach on the western part of Washington, along the pacific coast. It takes a few hours by car to get there. He suggested that the trip by public transport would cost about fifteen bucks. The time taken would be eight hours, but ah what eight hours they will be! Scenic! Full of nature's great offerings! Oh what views, ah the vistas we will get to experience.

I haven't done my public transport explorations in more recent times. Thinking it might be time for me-the-urban-explorer to make a comeback. How about I spend a day going to the Penninsula, camp a couple of days there while working from my laptop, and come back in public transport? Or make it a weekend trip even? Perhaps have somebody pick me up? The possibilities are endless and I really do want to become that sort of bus-explorer. Specially because traveling by bus in the rest of the USA sucks, not in this part of the country though.

On-again off again friend coming to Seattle? the possibilities!

My friend LZP might be coming to Seattle soon.  Haven't seen her in a couple of years. We were really good friends once. Then there was a massive misunderstanding. Then we patched up. Then she had to deal with issues and she went off the radar. Well she's back in contact, and has suggested she might come to Seattle. It'll be nice, haven't really hung out with her in forever. Would be nice to go on long walks, hang out with other friends, and moan about finding partners. It'd also be good to understand what sort of crisis other people find themselves in.

Perhaps she drives now? That would be ideal as we would be able to rent car and drive to other fun places. It's all up in the air though as she's disappeared after suggesting a possible Seattle trip. No matter, I ain't going anywhere after coming back from Boston later next month.

I'm excited. Hope more friends visited me more often from far away. It'd be a bit tiring but that'd be my life then! I have the time too!

Trader joe's trip, double walk, regular meals getting back [Wed 19]

fruits and oats for breakfast, leftover tofu-tarkari with quinoa for lunch,  double volunteer walk, quick trader joe's supplies, yogurt dinner.

I'm writing this on Monday because I'm a fool and weekends are so hard to right during. Should have done it on Thursday when I was on the productivity drive anyway. Regardless, let's move on.

Had fruits and oats for breakfast, with tea, after such a long time. My order was getting back and I felt so good about the world. Lunch was tofu-tarkari with quinoa, the leftover was finally finished. Went to volunteer park twice because of the cold or whatever, and it was ok, got my 10k steps in anyway. Went to trader joe's in the evening for toilet paper and fizzy water or juice. I like the place, should go there more often.

Dinner was quick yogurt meal.

Oh I remember now, the days of low-productivity and high sleep, I'm here now!

This entire month has been what I've been fearing for the past five months. Where I questioned what the hell I was doing all those free hours. Because several hours a day are taken on youtube and podcasts. Then I need to recover from anxiety caused by not doing anything. I sit down to write, 5 posts take four hours. It's walking time, but it's far too late for that. I try to write more, but it's late and night and I fall asleep. After waking up super early the next morning -- I didn't get enough rest the previous night -- the vicious cycle continues. Daynaps become more common, pushing the hard work becomes the order of the day. And eventually all that remains is youtube and random websites, and this deep sense of unrewarding anxiety. No books are read, no walking is done, I don't write or anything

Ah misery. The above has happened only for a day or two in the last many weeks, and I don't want to rehash of the previous situation.

Board games, bored games, learning in life

 One thing I specially hate, hate doing is reading boardgame rules. Or following them. If somebody explains them to me in clear terms, I'll go along. But if it falls on me, one would rather strongly prefer sleep.

I was thinking about it, and wondering if boardgame enthusiasts are good at bureaucracy or dealing with complex system. Perhaps they value novelty so much, they can quickly comprehend the changing rules? Someone should really do a research study on how transferable boardgame skills are. It be such an amazing proxy of talent or ability, if you could test contestants by board games. Perhaps that's what people in the government did in the olden days. It's probably how the world is like at this day an age too.

Board games are boring, unless somebody explains them to you in clear terms, and makes you feel excited. The most valuable skill is to make people care about those rules: if they are excited, that's all the better. But what does one do if one literally doesn't care about gaming at all. What if somebody would rather rest than understand those rules and play the new boardgame.

We must think of life as  a game, an infinite one, and try to figure out what the rules of life are that one is playing with. What is the game, exactly, and where might misapprehensions be?

Answering such questions will make one a better technical contributor and a much stronger leader!

Workstuff going well

The last week and this week they gave me upgrade task. It involved coordinating tasks with multiple teammates and doing the same thing all day long. I quite enjoyed it actually. It didn't involve coding, the outcome was easy to see too. It turns out the best part of work for me is organizing, and interacting with people. Silly as it may sound, I'm a born-leader. Not good at it, but that's what I enjoy doing. Organizing groups of people and training them to accomplish a clear set of tasks perfectly. If I were made a special operations trainer, it would probably be the best job possible.

Without that, what I have going on is pretty decent. This round of work is ending soon, so I'll need to orchestrate similar things falling on my plate. I am no genius, I'm unmotivated, but clearly there are things I'm excited about that are well-paid.

Feeling good about this whole situation. So long has gone by since it happened.

Knee problems, probs

 I've been busy in the weekends. That means no writing. It leads to tiring evenings avoiding writing the following day. Eventually productivity goes down to zero. Alas. So much guilt, so much anxiety. So little writing. Is okay. Love love love, loving the self is the way of the world. Let's move. Today's goal is to write 20-25 posts, eat quick dinner, head for walk. If it's late, so be it. Walking on Mondays is crucial.

I went on 8-mile hike over the weekend. My knee was a little tired during the day, and in the two days since, the pain seems to be getting worse. Yoga classes technically started today -- I didn't register yet -- so that should help. It's clear that this ailment is a lifelong situation. I need to be more disciplined in following the instructions of the app.

Old age has hit, knee problems have bitten me in the rear. There is no running away, must take the bull of senescence by the horns.

Worst sandwich idea every, volunteer park walk and tj's trip [Tue 18]

nastiest egg-sandwich idea in the world, quinoa-tarkari for lunch, yogurt dinner, volunteer park walk, TJ's shopping trip

It's Thursday as I write it. As I come so close to 'catching up', I run out of ideas to write. It's okay. We've seen the show before. Need to trust oneself, give oneself time. Avoid the internet like a snake. Let's get on! 

Work was pretty easy, seeing as it was a holiday Wednesday I felt pretty chill. Had quinoa-tarkari for lunch. In the afternoon tried making the nastiest combo of 'poached egg' in boiled water. Such. Bad. Idea. Some ideas are crap, and this idea was real bad.

Did couple of rounds of volunteer park, listening to Ken Albala's history of food. By the way, almost done listening to it. Another book done after so long. Went to Trader joe's to get paper towels and some basic eggs-and-milk supplies.

Had yogurt for dinner, and slept late. Didn't write...because...I was too sleepy and I kept it all the way to 1am.

Longest day of the year vibes

It's the longest day of the year. Summer solstice. I'm out of ideas. There weren't any, for a start. I'm ready to write. Techniques, limitations, practices. I've got them. What is lacking is topics. Things I care about. Stuff that needs to get written. Material that can be shared in these pages. The 'just write' crap is easy. Simple. It's gotten me nowhere. I know why. Unclear motivation. Unknown topics. "Do art" is nonsense. "Speak your language" is comical. "Just write" is ok to start. After six months, it's tired.

Where now? Unclear.

Tonight's goal is a drink. A recent friend's giving company. A nice bar perhaps. Longest day demands celebration. There's no desire to speak much. Listen, relax and live. Meditate. Why must we keep churning, keep running. Must be okay sitting down, meditating. That's the goal. To be one with self.

A snake, a worm, of an emotion in the heart, lies deep within. Fear, confusion, uncertainty perhaps. Of unclear origin. Isn't song-listened away. Can't shake it by eating. Silly me. Need to nurse it. Treat it like a baby. Send it away.

What causes me fear? Why must I run from life? Silly, silly me.

New therapist, doubts

 I saw a new therapist today. He's a dude, younger than the senior therapist I had a few years ago. Awfully quiet, and dare I say...hm...underconfident? Or uninterested? Confused perhaps. I talked for 30 minutes nonstop. People usually interrupt me or ask me questions. And in the end have a clear set of expectations for the next session. He was like, yeahhh if you want you can figure out whatever you want. Like it was some sort of date and uhh he was down to hang if I wanted to. Or something. Don't know. It's not like it matters. I just need somebody to talk to and vent. A trained person I can hold myself accountable against. That's all I want. Guess this guy works as good as any, huh.

Getting ready for the grand meal to wake up Ravana the great's brother

Food:

200 goats
3000 chicken
35 buffaloes
1000 large radish
rice enough for 500 people
lentils for 500 people
dessert enough for 4000 people
milk curd made from milk of a thousand cows
goat milk curd from two thousand goats
spices enough for all of above (whatever may be available)
spinach and green vegetables

Instruction:

Get the above ready and cooked by Maha Kumbhakarna's palace, and coordinate with other teams to wake the great king up.

Read screenplay, they said

Screenplays are great if you want to make your writing tight, I'm told. My editor said so. I went to this site called scriptsplug to get a good understanding. Essays aren't written like dialog though? The dialog is crisp, oh yeah. Nothing longer than ten words. Right to the point. You don't want to waste precious screen-time. Every extra second is thousands of dollars. The tighter the writing, the easier the editing, the quicker the production. Where do you start though? Just any screenplay or what? I've been stuck reading Chef (movie) script for the last three days. To. The Point. No rambling. I get it. But. How. What. It's hard, you know? What's the goal? The movie has to get somewhere. To the end scene. It has to evoke certain emotions to the audience. It has to convey a message. Make them understand the plot. These are principally straightforward tasks. The execution is tricky, I'll give you that. But you know the destination.

It's trickier to optimize travel when you don't know where you are going. I'm writing this 'to get better', 'just so', 'for myself''. To what end, exactly? Any practice needs clear motivation and goals. Soccer players don't run around the field kicking the ball hither-thither. Wrestlers don't just jump around and beat people up. Even artists(!) of all people have targeted practice. A clear goal. A vision.

What's my vision?

Quinoa tarkari lunch, volunteer park, yogurt and fruits dinner, evening writing [Mon 17]

quinoa-tofu-dal lunch, nice relaxing volunteer park walk, blackberry season, fruits and yogurt dinner, lots of evening writing,

It's Wednesday as I write this, so close to getting caught up. Five more posts..I'll do it, eventually. Need to be okay writing filler words.

Work was relaxing and mid. I need to get better at improving my attitude towards it. We will get there eventually, but I'm in a rush, godd.

Lunch was quinoa, tofu and dal. I napped for a long time in the afternoon, then went for a relaxing walk to volunteer park. Unfortunately for me, didn't get full 10k steps because I took only 2 rounds. Because I was too hungry or tired or sleepy or something, don't remember. Crapshit. That's what it is.

On my way back saw blackberry fruits! They're coming! Exciting times! I should go to the parks to eat them again. Had fruits and yogurt for dinner.

In the evening wrote 20 posts until wee hours of the morning, because I'd slept well during the day.

Haven't attended events recently

 Quick post after writing a lot. Five more posts to go, might decide to do other things before committing to those. I was supposed to go to a tech event last night that I've attended consistently over the past four months. I didn't go. Napped in the afternoon, apartment was a mess. Too much to write. And also, there was a person who looked at my face and said bye bitch the last time. Basically. Didn't enjoy it. If I'd gone, it'd have been a good time. That would have been interesting. Haven't attended other local political and activism events either. It's been awhile. Perhaps they're not organizing it as well as they did, perhaps my standards have reason. Or maybe I don't have the energy anymore? Either way, my goal to expand the social circle hasn't been going well. How to get better, what do I do? I need a guru, someone to tell me what to do next. Ack. Really, I wonder if I could pay for a guru and have them tell me what I should do next?

Stream of consciousness: inconsiderate assholes in Seattle

The thing about Seattle is there are a disproportionate number of inconsiderate people. There's normal, nice people too, but the annoying ones are annoying. You've heard of the Belltown Hellcat, the asshole who keeps disturbing the neighborhood. He's hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt, has physically assaulted his mother with police involvement, but he'll force her to bail him out anyway. People don't face the consequences of their assholish actions, they are free to fly it appears. And there's the situation where the mentally ill are jerking off, shitting pissing right in the open, in front of other people. Drug addiction is a serious matter and so is illness, but nobody has the right to bother others. Does the law apply equally to all, or do some people get special privileges because rich white assholes want to protect them? Sometimes one is quite tired of the people in this area. Because the environment is just perfect. Weather is ideal, lovely really, never too awful to spend one's days.  But everything else is..ugh.. Anyway, there was an asshole playing music at 1000% in his car outside my window as he waited for the lights. Why, you fucking muppet, why the freaking shit would you do that to other people? Have you never, in your fucking life, faced any consequences for your actions? Has nobody dared to slap the shit off your face, because this should not be legal, Like what the friggin shit. Not fair. We need to figure this out.

Grounded in the real-life reality

You climb down a deep well,
and come out into a different universe,
the colors are different here,
and smells fly around like birds,
you don't see other people,
their presence is felt
deep inside the heart,
as if seeing a movie
inside the mind's eye.

You wonder
if you're losing your mind,
this can't be right,
who is the tall guy
I imagine,
walking behind me,
and then he taps your back,
sir, you forgot your wallet
back at the dreamatorium!
Just like that he's gone,
you're now searching for the well
to climb up into,
I may have wanted an escape,
but the world was at least sane,
and you climb back
into the bottom of the deep dark well.

Eventually, somehow you make it back,
and the world feels so much better,
the birds don't erupt here like volcanoes
and none of that bullshit candy-trees here
the water is cool and wet
and you can see and predict your way.

And for the first time ever,
you understand the meaning
of being grounded,
and grounded in reality

Reading books again

We've discussed how the last few weeks (or the last two months) have been a bit challenging. I was reading multiple books. Listening to many more. Getting shit done. Writing. Feeling so good. Acting like a King. And then there was a fall. I'm still picking myself up from the uhh rest?

A sign of recovery that's solid is reading. It takes a serious amount of commitment and patience to make ti through 16-18 hours of listening to audiobooks. But I'm doing it again! With the drawing book, I'm actually reading reading properly too. And ohh, I've been actually longform reading in my devices elsewhere as well.

This is as positive a progress as it gets. Need to keep pushing myself harder. Need to get back into routine. Routine, discipline, self understanding, time boxing are what will take me to greatness!

Recovery day from medication, football watching at PS's, messed up meals [Sun 16]

cancelled golfing plans, two trader joe's trips, hanging out with aks and ps watching football game, fucked up meals, snacks for brunch, potatoes for dinner, so very tired and lots of sleeping, Aks leaves

Writing this on Wednesday, we're getting better at this, freaking finally.

I woke up super tired and with a headache. Didn't sleep all night long due to the chocolate experiment from the night before. We cancelled our morning golf-playing plans. Didn't feel like eating either.

A bit after midday we went to PS's place. I stopped by at TJ's and got so many snacks. Stayed at PS's for two hours, watched England v Serbia game, and made hiking plans for the following Sunday. P might be coming too. Good news? Who knows...

Went to TJ's again to buy AS his snacks.

Slept for the rest of the day, had leftover potatoes from the day before for dinner. I was so tired, so confused. It's as if I'd taken actual party drugs instead of something harmless. My body is weird.

AS drove away in the evening, with plan to come back next weekend.

Silly idea with Nepali FM stations

 I downloaded an open-source radio application, no ads and nonsense invasive intrusive bullshit. But it's fucking radio, what do I listen to anyway? I figured it out: Nepali radio programs. In grad school I woke up to the alarm of Nepali late-afternoon radio programs. Now I'm thinking of listening to Nepali fm more.

The idea is this: what if I started calling the programs that still take calls?! And like sought miss connections? Generally asking people if they know anybody single, and if they'd be willing to set me up. And not give 'em my name, and say, oh I'll be a regular caller. Or make a general announcement that people who know me and into me should reach out. It'd be silly but at least that's something. I need to expand my social circle, man. But every day there's more involution. Ughh.

List of my comfort foods

1.  Tofu tarkari mushroom, eggs, rice, kimchi
   
   
2. rice, dal, potatoes, chickpeas
   
   
3. kimchi, noodles, eggs, tofu, spices, oils, onion, mushroom hotpot
   
   
4. tomato, cheese, basil, pesto sandwich, eggs extra
   
   
5. oats, savory AND sweet, with proteins or fruits
   
   
6. Any ledo tarkari with frozen spinach and coconut milk
   
   
7. kadhi ko tarkari! with rice
   
   
8. fruits and yogurt!
   
   
9. sadheko popcorn, sadheko anything specially snacks!
   
   
10. potatoes, potatoes potatoes, but hopefully without consequences
    

Budpod back-catalog listening

I'm running out of ideas to write, that's the deal. What was I even writing before, when there was no 'catching up' to do? This needs to be done. It's a place for me, this is what I do. By definition my life can go on only after working on this blog. But one doesn't come up with good ideas every day, and life gets boring after a while, you know? So let's talk about something I've been doing; listening to so. much. Budpod podcast.

Phil Wang and Pierre Novellie's podcast involves the host just chitchatting, thinking of funny strange ideas. Mint Mobile's Ryan Reynolds' ads are driving me crazy because he will come up with some nonsense every five fucking minutes in the ads. But besides that, the boys are so funny. They're consistently good, there's barely ever a lull.

In the last three days I must have listened to 20 episodes? Maybe more? Podcasts are such a great alternative to the internet, to netflix. I can be doing other things, and have the comfort of having other people nearby. I was in a big podcast binge in 2016-17, when I had to avoid the news for uhh obvious reasons. Now I'm thinking of getting away from the internet and doing so again.

I should find myself a couple of comforting podcasts with a large backlog. They'll also need to be producing new episodes quickly, because otherwise the wait would be too painful.

uhhh noo hair losss!

Perhaps it's my uneven eating. It's possible I'm not maintaining proper workout. There could be something else. My hair has been thinning rapidly in recent months. The hair on my crown has mostly disappeared. Alas, there's not much I can do. What steps can one even take to reduce the getting rid of it? Perhaps I need to see a doctor? Or take modifinil in Costco? At this rate, I'll be officially (tm) middle aged in a year or two. I'm okay with it, but the rate is confusing. Perhaps I should shave my head. It's in style, isn't it? Probably a hassle to do it every week, but I could come up ahead!

Long day of traveling, new friend, homemade dinner for many [Sat 15]

a long day of fun, illustration in the morning, skipping breakfast, picking up ak's cousin, alladin's for lunch, lunch at UW campus, chillin at my place, going to the seattle roteping and wings over washington, yummy dinner made at home, dropping the cousin in the evening, clubbing

It's Wednesday as I write this, but much more progress is being made. Fifteen more posts for today and we'll be fine. Haven't been eating well, that could be why I'm not writing as regularly. It's one of many competing theories I have.

I skipped the regular morning breakfast because it was tiring. Did a couple of hours of illustration in the morning. We went to pick up P who's ak's cousin. Because she was quite hungry we went to U-District to pick our lunches. They got it..somewhere...and I went to Alladins. It's so authentic! I need to go more often. What a long wait it was. Felt right at home in South Asia or the Middle east. Love that place, love the vibe.

We sat at UW campus and had our lunch, but it rained, and that kinda spoiled our picnic. I had to break a boiled egg and eat it. Felt a little weird. We came back and chilled a bit at my place. Then we headed out again, down to the waterfront.

There we took the Seattle flier or whatever the thing is called. It's a ride. Slow AF, and you don't see a much, but P is a tourist, so. Then AS took us too wing over washington, which is a '4-D' experience, they show you a high-def movie, and use water, smells, and tilting seats to give you realistic experience. Make you feel like an eagle.

We went to Pike place market, then came back home. We made a yummy dinner, tofu and mushrooms and dal, with quinoa. P liked it! Dropped P home, and then caught up with the boys. Went to their place, then to Comet at first. Then to Rhino where G discovered he was banned for good. We finally went to Barboza. It was so. fucking. busy. So. Crowded. I'd rather pay some money than dance in such quite quarters. Free clubs are meh. This after waiting for 50 minutes.

Came back home early, at 1.15, couldn't sleep. Because of the medication I'd taken earlier. AS thankfully came soon after. All night sleep was terrible. Discovered I'm not designed for certain medication.

Happy Juneteenth people

Today is Juneteenth. They gave us time off after not considering it a holiday for a few years in between. It's important, and we should all celebrate how far we've come.

As it's a Wednesday, something else I've discovered. That I quite like having the middle of the week off! If I can get my visa situation figured out, I have a plan. To take a bit of a pay-cut, but work only four days a week. Wednesdays are off. I'd be a lot less stressed. Way more productive too. I'd probably be happy about the whole work situation.

That's something to think about in the long term. Work less for the same money. Maintain stability at work, make headway with personal growth.

Dick's fries and milkshake, a re-review

Have I reviewed dicks before? Possibly. But not their fries, possibly. Definitely not their milkshake, I don't order those.

The fries are soaked and limp, always. I don't mind that. At school they gave us limp fries, and they were just rightly salted. I miss the fries from our school! They were better than what Dick's has to offer though. These ones are not salted well enough. Limp, oily, and undersalted fries are fine, you can't go wrong with potatoes. But they're not preferable. If one's messing up their diabetes, it better be for something good. Six point five stars out of ten. Gotta tolerate it.

Their milkshakes were better. Not super duper sweet, not nauseating, didn't cause my tummy to ache. seven point five out of ten. I wouldn't order it on my own. If somebody else ordered it for me, I wouldn't reject it. That's the best I can say about their shakes.

Manao thai tofu fried rice review

 I don't remember the last time I got food from Manao thai restaurant. I live not very far from it. It's never quite impressed me. Last weekend Sk brought me tofu fried rice and thai tea for lunch. Quick review.

It wasn't spicy, it wasn't flavored, it was oily but not in a good way. I had to dump a bunch of spice on it. It didn't taste very good despite that. I'd have preferred to eat rice and dal to the meal. I'm not a great cook. But I could make a meal that tasted better with hands tied. Wouldn't need me eyes open either.

The tea was...colorful and very sweet. I drank it because it was hot outside.

Man, I'm glad I don't go there more often. Wish there were better restaurants near me. At least I'm not spending lots of money on eating out.

Five out of ten stars. Maybe less. If I could, I'd ask for my money back, and cook a nice meal for ten instead.

Review: Albacha's vegetarian wrap

I'd been sleeping on Albacha all this time!

Last week Sk and I got Albacha's for dinner. I was in no mood for dinner, but felt I'd give their veggie and hummus wrap a try. And it was pretty fucking fantastic? It was about ten bucks, which is on the same ballpark as Chipotle. They had chickpeas, eggplant, tahini, and a bunch of veggies. Fries optional, I didn't get those. I asked for the spicy sauce. It wasn't as filling as Chipotle, but then ughh, nothing's as cheap and filling as rice and beans, is it?

The pita bread was quite good. It was fluffy and fresh, and I could taste the salt and oil in the bread, in a good way. The eggplant and other fillings were soft and not too spiced. The other veggies were a welcome presence.

I felt content and happy about the world after eating it. It's the most one can ask from affordable hand-food isn't it? Great value for money, great flavor, quite nutritious. Solid 9 out of ten stars!

Aks, disgusting lunch, volunteer walk, office drive, scooby doobies, airport drive [Fri 14]

AKs arrives, dominos dessert during lunch, volunteer park walk, albacha wrap dinner, night drive to the office, parking hassle, driving friend to the airport, scooby doo and the doobies

I'm writing this the next Monday. If I write 15ish posts tomorrow, or for about an hour, I will be more or less even. Do not want to find myself in this situation again. Need to minimize screen time besides writing. Hate hate social media or news sites, dear lord.

AKS arrived in the early afternoon and he had leftover pizzas for lunch. I finished the dominos dessert and cheesey breads. Ugh. I'm a disgustoid.

Went on an early afternoon walk with sk to volunteer park. We dropped by alhacha where I got their vegetarian wrap. It could be my ascetic lifestyle, limited in enjoyment, that led me to feel this way. Their wraps are actually quite good, actually! I'll write a review later, but man, what a treat that was.

AKS and I drove to my office so I could tap in. We spent so much time searching for parking spot and going to it in the evening. Had some doobies with sk (a puff or two, just) and went with Aks to the airport. Dropped him off and went to bed pretty early on. It had been a long day.

Repotting and hydroponics

Those fuckers...basil and mint...are doing quite well in my hydroponic setup, at the cost of everything else. They're glugging the water I put in, two liters every week! Oregano is long dead, and rosemary never recovered from the initial run. I increased the light height because the herbs are getting lightburnt. Hopefully in a few weeks I'll have self-sustaining production of the two herbs. Does smell nice though.

I repotted my dwarf banana plant because apparently it's supposed to be several feet high, in two years? And I've had it for three and it's like a few inches taller than it was...I'll be replanting the nicer plants into their own pots because there's enough sharing now. The velvet pothos plants are doing better than ever, and even regular pothos are thriving.

I'll be fertilizing starting next week. Should have started in Feb, or never stopped doing it. Ah well, you learn.

Monsterra I don't understand. I got one a week ago and repotted lazily, and it's withering away. I have made a more serious attempt at replanting today. We shall see in the next few weeks how that goes.

Thinking of buying couple of pots and more soil and expand my plant collection. It's going to hurt like a mofo when I leave the city, but such is the nature of life. It ends and we lose everything yet with must live with vigor.

I need a long vacation to relax and reset myself

Have we talked about this before? My biggest (only?) vacation was last year in Nepal. It wasn't much of a vacation, with everything else going on. I need some time to just...reset, be myself, explore and understand. To know the world, and myself.

Don't want the vacations to be empty and chill, that's how my days are anyway. No internet during my vacation, please. Ideally there's going to be lots and lots of walking, workouts, good food, good people. Wealth and its trappings aren't of the highest importance. No bedbugs would be preferable, mosquitoes are ideally avoided too. I'd like it if I didn't die of meningitis or some such bullshit. That's all.

For one to just want to learn, and be unable to get it, is pitiable state of affairs. We chase chase chase all these goals, leave so little time to breathe. To feel the heartbeat and relax. Silly.

I won't find the vacation in New York. That is a rush job if there was ever one. Hopefully there's one approaching soon later this year.

Summer classes next week, wohoo

Yoga and drawing classes begin next week. I'm excited, eager, and surprised that 'summer break' has been over so soon. I'll have to miss my classes for one week in July, when I'm traveling far east. Still haven't gotten the tickets, fuck. Will do it this evening -- nah, tomorrow morning it is.

The yoga schedule is a lot more limited than what I'd hoped for, but it's fine. For my drawing class, I'm hoping to really hone on the basic skills (straight lines, circles, etcetera) at home. That way I can have the instructor guided me on more advanced topics. Shit she enjoys teaching, not the basic instructions. I've been in two minds about adding more course-load. Human form, or fashion drawing classes would be cool to take, to help with storyboarding. They're good skills for storytelling in general.\

I've had my 3-week rest, and am eager for what the future holds. The Fall is gonna be rippin'!

Dal dal dal, so much dal

I have now, in my place, 10 kilos of dal. Don't ask how, because we've talked about it before: Saywee. Mom says it's too much dal, I should look into freezing or refrigerating it. I basically never bought before, so who even knew. I'm not paying a big premium over what it costs in Kathmandu, which makes me happy.

Lentils are cheap, easy to make, easy to consume, go with any spice, or any grain. Even if I'm feeling the gloomies (which I haven't in a while, but I've almost approached there) it's comfort food. To ground me. To remind me it's going to be fine. Oh protein and fibers are good too.

Hope I'm done with these real quick, because that means I'm eating healthy. Wouldn't be opposed to eating it two, maybe even three meals a day! Protein with carb means the sugar absorption is better!

Noodles for lunch, office and volunteer park walk, domino's for dinner [Thu 13]

Noodle and egg for brunch, evening walk to the office, volunteer park walk with sk, domino's dinner on way back, netflix and illustration and early evening in

Still Monday evening as this piece gets written. We've made some progress, and hopefully more is made.

Heated up leftover noodles, and fried two eggs to go with them, for lunch. Went to the office to tap in after work was over, listened to Ken Albala's food books once again.

One the way back, asked sk if he wanted to go North, and went with him to Volunteer park. A couple of rounds there, and I ordered a Domino's: cheesy bread, medium pizza and the lava cake. We picked 'em up, Sk also got a giant fanta, the asshole.

We had an amazing dinner but my heart felt clogged, forreals. I did some evening illustration, and we watched tv. Sk started talking to his uh friend, so I called it an early night.

Heck of a mess of a place after a fun weekend

I am. so. very. tired. Sk had to throw out all his shit. And Aks came and he had to throw a bunch of crap out. Multiple meals were cooked for guests, theirs and mine. The dishes are all dirty, the trash is overflowing. I fucking took it out twice last week. I can't, can't. How much must one clean, all day every day, for the load to only increase? It's like one of those Greek trick questions. What's something that increases the more you try to get rid of it? Dirty dishes, and kitchen waste.

It's like magic.

I abandoned using the machine because it wasn't working so well. Now I'm reconsidering my decision. Do all the big pots and pans by hand, and machine the rest. If something stick, I can redo one or two. Otherwise it's a roundtrip up-hill climb every day.

These circumstances are certainly not ideal. The washer is a piece of crap and that doesn't help.

If only these things could be magically solved. Such is the drudgery of existence.

How quickly you make friends sometimes!

I'm..confused, is this a poem
Or a random essay of sorts
Am I writing about someone
special, a particular person
or is it just a general commentary
on the nature
of friendship?

When I say a 'friend',
what do I mean, really,
a friend friend or
not-a-friend friend
if you know what I mean,
because when has one
been quick to make friends
lasting more than a
medicated night out
about town?

Surely then,
the title is not right
it must be set straight
How quickly you
get to know people
sometimes,
which you hope
is mutual,
the knowing part I mean,
otherwise it can
get
confusing.

Do you remember those films
The after midnight series
Linklater, was it him?
Women friends were all over them--
wasn't it about this,
the nature of friendship
relationship
and how quickly you make them?

What's new here, dub,
let's get done.

Making good progress on writing with the editor and the writing class

This is one of the better money-spendy decisions I've made. I've been talking to and meeting an editor for the last two months or so. The idea was to help me improve my written essays for the website. Instead it's turned into a writing class of sorts. I like it this way, because of teach a man to fish thing. This is what I've been looking in recent times anyway. Somebody to critique my work, and provide comments. His comments are informed and to the point. He points me to resources to use to improve myself.

Only thing is...I negotiated quite badly initially. It's okay at the moment, the first initial run for $200 is going to be out soonish I think. Beyond that, we'll need to renegotiate. I'll need to cut down costs pretty severely, as much as 40%. If that works, I'm considering doing a bulk purchase of his time.

It's challenging to know where you are lacking as a writer. Shit like chatgpt and gemini -- ai models -- don't know how to teach good writing. And best, they are poor teachers. It's curious how the introduction of those moronic models made me actually take up proper editor and writing class.

Pity. Such pity. For the ai.

For me, good times. Hope I remember the lessons and internalize them!

Some useful modern inventions are not for me, likely

Quick comment. I tried a modern invention that's supposed to improve an affliction I'm certain I suffer from. It caused me a lack of sleep, made me tired and sore the next day. Didn't feel like myself for a day or two. In its effect on my body it resembled another much more controlled and serious substance that doesn't work for me either. I've considered getting diagnosed at getting it long-term, but nah, it's not my jam.

Alas, the fun 'good' bad things, ones not allowed generally, don't work for me. I'm not just a square, I can't even become anything else. A boring, non-rebel, the establishment line. The rat, the informant. The most boring lameass dude at the Luau.

Such is my existence.

Hill walk for doobies, another Annapurna disappointment, latenight hang and chyang [Wed 12]

Quinoa, chickpeas and eggs for lunch, hill walk for doobies with sk, nibbles and ice cream at Annapurna with the boys, latenight hang with new tiktoker and gs

It is still Monday evening, and we're still an hour away from being done. This is not ideal, but the social-interaction vs writing thing is not new.

Lunch was had of quinoa, chickpeas and eggs. Work was easy because it was one of those days when you're supposed to do fun stuff.

In the evening, Sk and I headed out for a decent walk. We walked up and down the Broadway, then west of it, accidentally taking a wrong turn. Ended up at a dooby store where he got couple of joints. I tried a hit. Meh. Not a fan. Need to cut it out entirely, eventually.

Got dinner with Sk AY and GS at Annapurna. A is starting at tiktok soon. They were talking about monies far far too much, I was stressing the shit out. Keep telling sk to stop taking me to places where 'oo need to make so much monies' is the primary motif, but here we are.

I had minor pecks from everyone else's plate. An ice cream for me. Quite bad as usual.

Spent time until wee hours of the morning with them at my place, offered chhyang that they appeared to enjoy.

No fault of my own, I cook myself

Am I at fault,
For your giggles,
and will they hold me
in contempt of everything dear,
because
you appear to be
a gourmand of middle-class comedy
and I am
only a chef
of the third rate
who knows his crowd?

And what if the chef
is suddenly suave
one of those days
just for a little bit,
did it need an intervention,
really(!?)
of a concerned person
to advise you
to hold the horses
of your unrestrained
laughs?
Is it a crime
to appreciate
middle-brow college humor?

In any case,
I got to be going,
and the drinks of your choice
and all of your likes
that were peppered
(talk of the customer
taking the initiative!)
throughout
doth make the outsider
wonder
if something
might be cookin'.

Straighter lines, rounder circles, smoother ellipses: how I will eventually become a better illustrator

I borrowed a book on observational drawing from the library. Finally. It teaches all the basics, things my instructor doesn't care for. I like our advanced level. It's good to brush up on the basics sometimes.

The skills they tell you to develop first? Straighter lines. I. Suck. I said the same to my teacher a year ago. Can't draw 'em straight to save my life. Surely it can't be that hard. If I keep on drawing 'em, hundreds at a time, something's gotta give. They make you draw parallel lines, grids, and so forth too. Advanced techniques for simple improvements. I love it. Nothing more relaxing than drawing straight lines all afternoon.

I'm worse at drawing round circles. So very bad. Thought of writing a piece of code to verify if my circles were getting better. No point in that. I'm not at that level yet. How does one know when to turn the pen around! Larger pieces are particularly tricky: where does the 'curve' begin and line end? So sad.

Ellipses are just advanced versions of circles. So you can guess how good I'm at drawing them. You need to be consistently bad at drawing circles, on opposite ends!

My approach is to throw more time at it. The usual. Something should change at some point. Progress takes time, they say. But when you notice, you've crossed the threshold. That threshold better be coming fucking fast, cos' I don't see it on the horizon!

Desperation times post: The coconut water hustle

Short one, as I'm once again running on fumes here. Don't write for a week, then kill yourself over it. Less than ideal strategy on my side. Here we are anyway.

When Sk was over, we ran a bit of a hustle. He'd bring in a couple of tetrapaks of coconut water they had at his office. Our household must have consumed 20 bottles by the week's end. It's tasty, low on calories, and has electrolytes. I love the bottle design too. It's 'natural' obviously too.

I love the flavor. In an ideal world I'd not be drinking any water. Drink coconut milk instead of water. Coconut water tea. Replace water in cooking with it. Bathe in coconut water and honey too! Oh and my plants would absolutely love the electrolytes!

Alas I'm not rich or crazed enough to do that. But really.

Ugh, Domino's is great but...I can feel my heart cry

The gist is this: there's no way even occasional Domino's is good. I have bad cholesterol ratio. I should run away from Domino's like a vampire from garlic. It tastes fantastic, but it'll eventually kill me. It's mostly the oils. The dough tastes just fine. A bit like...hmm baked dough. Not necessarily in a good way. But my heart will pump, pump, pump. The stress it brings is not worth it. There's the sugar rush too. Yeah it's an easy meal, and one doesn't have to cook for a while. So is chipotle. I don't believe Chipotle dinners will kill me as quick. They're about the same quality. Who needs desserts anyway. Domino's online deals are great, but I'm kinda done now.

Let's close this chapter. I love you Domino's, but part we must. We had a great time, and now it's time to go our own paths. We might encounter again, but the feeling won't me there. A fond memory of the past and mutual respect is what remains. Adios, mi amor.

Lowkey hang, eggy lunch and dinner, doobies and netflix night [Tue 11]

eggs, chickpeas and oats for lunch, yunmy hotpot noodles for dinner, lowkey hang with Sk

It's Monday (the following one) as I write this. I'm not at all 'caught up' as I wrote a few posts ago. This is sad, bad, pathetic. It's also alright, because too much fun was had. Spending time with friends, talking to family, has its worth. Still, lets get back into our groove.

This was one of the slower days, as I seemed to be recovering from 'some' thing...

Had eggs chickpeas with oats for lunch. Dinner was hotpot noodles with 3 types of mushroom, tofu, greens, eggs and so forth.

Watched tv with Sk in the evening, including Captain Fall, and got high. Good times.

Need. To. Change. My. Attitude. Towards. work.

I wrote this title three days ago, I'm getting around to writing the meat and potatoes only now. That reflects my attitude to work. Let's discuss in detail.

They say either you can change your circumstances, or your attitude to it. Else, it's all misery. I don't mind my circumstances. My attitude to it is horrendous. I need to fix it.

I complain all the time. I moan and whine, often with a sense of pride. I've locked myself in a prison of my own making. One where my primary job is to shirk all responsibilities. To do nothing. To cheat the man. An act of communistic solidarity, undermining capitalism. It's not intentional. I'm a man of the markets. I've unknowingly become the proletariat, a member of the resistance.

This is not good. I must change my mindset. I actually love the position I find myself in. It's perfect.for where my goals lie. The treadmill of unending desires is not desirable. Personal freedom and time to explore one's interest is of the highest value. That's where I'm at. Yet I don't appreciate it.

How might I change my attitude to work? What could I do to be more respectful of my circumstances? What could I do to give more to my company and coworkers? To give them the value they deserve out of me?

My attitude towards work needs to change. Right now. Right here. Starting today.

Weed is no fun, not at all hun

SK was here last week. He enjoys imbibing the devil's lettuce. He bought several joints, and I took a puff or two every time. I didn't have fun. I don't see the point anymore. They make me tired. I get paranoid. The next day is spent in a daze. And all the fun that was had is forgotten. Social bonds unsure. Are you flirting, or is that how you are? Were they flirting? Should you be serious? Who even knows. You were high off your head, and now you are fucked. So. Freaking. Fucked. Deeply, hardcore effed.

It's not even the rollercoaster ride of paranoia that I used to enjoy, fun. It's plain drudgery. Neckache. Back pain. Sore feet. Fear of aging. All valid points. this is boring. I should really not take it more than once a week. Ugh. Need to get better at meditation anyhow.

A reminder to self: just ten minutes a day towards your fantasy future

I talked to my sister about my career ambitions goals etcetera. She gave me a great advice: spend ten minutes a day working on it. It's not a big ask. Every day, move your career progression ahead by ten minutes. Talk to somebody, think about something important, come up with an interview strategy, think of a social connection, or whatever you think will take you to get there. Just, like, do it man! Don't worry, don't be silly, just...get at it?

That seems too good to be true? Yet that's exactly what you want. And with other things in my life too. Why am I not meditating, not even spending 10 minutes a day on it? Why won't I do workouts, only ten minutes a day? They aren't big time commitments, they're even smaller mental commitment. All I need to do is sit down, give myself the space, and do it.

I like to blame it on not being in control of my surroundings. That ain't right. Nobody's stealing 1 hour from my days. It's all me. Sit down, adult up, do it. Don't complain, don't worry. Look ahead, focus. Not in an intense smartypants way. Visualize your goals, and walk those steps.

 Remind yourself of these points often, lots of love.

A week of unhealthy eating, but this too shall pass!

 This weekend has been a...trip.  So tiring, busy, unproductive from personal perspective. Nothing gets done, basically, when somebody else is in the house. I don't know what's up with that. After finally getting caught up on the writing and feeling good about myself, I was stuck in this unproductive, yet tiring and unfulfilling morass for several weeks. It's not something I want to repeat. Either way, lets talk about food.

I had disgustingly oily fried rice with sweet thai tea one evening, then ice cream the other, then nasty fries and milkshake the next, and then several cups of fanta (yuuuck) the next. I was high, but that ain't right. Then finally I had domino's pizza and dessert. I don't mind domino's, it tastes good, but ahh. With little workout and food like that, it'd be surprising if one made it past 40.

In any case, two different friends visited me during the week, and this new week I'm all free by myself, so there's lots more freedom and independence. I'll get back to good healthy eating, hurrah!

Spicy meals, yogurt and fruits, afternoon nap, unproductive rest day [Mon 10]

spicy foods tummyache, no walk,  midday nap, no yoga because misunderstanding, no writing, spicy quinoa bowl with eggs, yogurt and fruits for dinner

Slow day, didn't do much. Suffered a bunch from tummyache, and spent time recovering from the day before. Lunch was super duper spicy quinoa bowl, had yogurt and fruits for khaja. Sk had dinner of leftover rice. My tummy hurt a lot. I thought the yoga classes would be starting this day, but that was a misunderstanding. Didn't write much because needed recovery from excessive socializing the day before. Slept for a couple of hours in the afternoon.

So late and haven't written, sigh

 I haven't written much, and it's very, very late. What is going on, what the hell is wrong? Is it me, or has the passion gone? Why must I write? What is the way, what is the goal? Should I keep doing it even if I'm in a creative hole? Am I improving, really, or is it a pointless exercise? Where is the way, where do I go, and what do I do? Making excuses, reading up on news, and just escaping my passion. Perhaps writing isn't my guiding star? Must I write, all the time? Or should I give up this hobby of mine? What am I good for, where do I go? What is the goal in life, what the hell to do? Who do I reach out to, where are the cuties at? Is this all a distraction, until a partner's been met? Or perhaps we're creating a great palace of our dreams, collecting skills from all the aspects of life...

Sad Nepali nationalistic songs are too much, maaan

On some days I put on Nepali nationalistic music like gaun gaun bata, and the rest, mostly from Balidaan the movie. And there's this strong feeling of....dunno, rage, sadness, disappointment. An anger at everything, a commitment to change things. It's not fun being a part of an unchanging, uncaring, system even if one does benefit from it. We must make progress, take steps to make sure the weakest and the poorest among us are protected. That our societies are structured to empower every single child to meet their fullest ability and desire. Why must our societies favor certain people over others based on circumstances of their birth? While yes, all of it is random, human actions and human agency exist, and we must empower human agency and driven actions to bring about positive changes in society. And for that, feudalism in all its form, corporatism, and lawlessness anarchy are our enemies.

That's what I think about listening to Nepali songs anyway. For about 24 hours. Eventually the strong emotions begin to fade out and I go back to being 'normal'.

Ahhh, the empathy is cruel, a pointlessly painful action that brings me no personal benefit.

Some people are just so...silly...and work against their own interests all the time

This was originally meant as a commentary on a friend of mine. He wants one thing, and keeps bringing up how badly he wants it. But his actions reveal otherwise. His words and  actions are completely unaligned, he is clearly working consistently against his long-term interests. And what a (medium) betrayal it has been. Because I set things up so he would benefit from contacts and engagements to meet his (presumed) goals. And egg on my face, he did things to the contrary. How annoying.

People are lost, people are pathetic, people are confused even when they have a really good sense of what their desires are. It's silly, how some people work against their own interests, because they can't hold themselves together.

Back to hindu myth reading

I've been reading up on Tamil / sanskrit poetry, and hindu mythology books once again. Not regularly, but in the evenings when I'm bored. Or avoiding writing in these pages. Every bout of interest I get a couple of weeks, I learn something new. It expands my understanding of the history and culture. Puts things in context. The dream is to project that -- along with contemporary data -- into the future, and attempt to make predictions. It's impossible, really, but an understanding of a culture does give one a sense of contentment that's otherwise quite hard to come.

Meghaduta is such a heartwrenching, garment-rendering piece. But I enjoy the commentary of it more than the actual material. I read somewhere the 'fun' thing about old sanskrit pieces is/was that they were created to open possibility for commentary. And now a compendium of commentary on those is itself a thing of its own. The commentary culture is so interesting. I've been reading this new website, china heritage, and they have old essays presented as commentary on each other. They post all essays and their commentary right in there, so it feels a lot more heady than 'western' newspapers.

Wish somebody would do that for South Asian classical works too...

Volunteer-interlaken walk with friends, tacos chukis lunch, sandwich dinner, meghaduta illustration, evening sandwich [Sun 9]

 Big oat breakfast, friends come in, long midday walk, lunch at taco chukis, long time at the place, unable to be productive in the evening, cheese sandwich for dinner, illustrating meghaduta

Writing this on Thursday evening. We're getting caught up. At this rate I'll be all set in a day or two. Though with daytime naps, everything's upturned, so tricky times. Anywho, we'll move on.

This was a busy day. Sk and I had a big oats breakfast, and were planning the rest of the day (and talking nonstop about relationships, ugh). Friend B called and informed he and T would be here in 45 mins. So we got ready, and went with them to volunteer-interlaken parks, ended at broadway and had lunch at taco chukis. We spent like four or five hours, and all of that talking about relationships, finding partners and so forth. Was quite exhausted by the end of it... Also, folks really really liked tacos chukis, and sk ordered like three different rounds of entrees, after eating the previous, because he just liked it so.

In the evening I tried to write, but really really couldn't make myself do it. Instead, I did some significant amount of reading on hindu mythology. Then I did a pretty long and involved illustration of meghaduta. It was...pretty decent.

Had cheese sandwich for dinner, just cheese and bread, sk had rice leftovers from the day before.

So much dal, I won't have to worry about lentils thanks to Weee!

Got 20 lbs of dal delivered the other day, of five different kinds. Which means I'm basically set for the next year or so. My second order from Weee, and at this point the prices seem to be alright? As long as they don't charge me extra fees and I'm not paying for delivery, the minimum order size of $35 is acceptable.

Dal is such an easy way to get protein and fiber, I've missed it for the last several months. Because it's simple to prepare -- boil with spices, basically -- one often finds it easy to overlook the entire class. But that's not a downside, it's a sure staple: it goes with every carb source, and helps sort absorption issue. Taking protein with carbs helps even a diabetic absorb the sugars and carbs easily, apparently. So that's another level to control my cholesterol and diabetes issues in one step...

Drawing random illustrations and letting them grow is so much fun!

Over the weekend I drew a bunch of different illustrations, most of them featuring people. Because I need to get better at drawing people and placing them in physical environments. Drawing the environments and how they influence people in the scene. I'm so very bad at it still, that I have to keep reminding people, explaining to them what something is. And they're like, ohh yeah, kinda looks like that, huuuh. But they don't seem sold. It's okay, I don't think I know how to put in visual cues to identify locations and objects yet. The 'markers', visual shortcuts that can be used to communicate symbolic language. After all hand-drawn art is rarely a 1-1 representation of reality but a way to communicate an idea, object, or concept. Even a scene. If the idea comes across with using shortcuts, then you can spend more time on the details, while being sure the artistic flourish you've added to your object won't be misunderstood.

It's fun, it really is! To add and subtract shit from scenes, to create an atmosphere, and try to understand how my changes modify how I'm looking at or perceiving something. Progress is of course quite slow, nowhere as rapid as desired. Though to be fair, so has practice been, if I were to put full effort into understand and improving myself, and getting good feedback from friends and family, that rate would be quicker. Haven't put effort into that. Maybe i should get back to the commitment of drawing for 30 minutes, as quick as possible. Line of action, once again, to quickly represent available ideas, and go in to add details later. Oh what a brilliant concept that has been, I'm so glad I'm a student learning something that had been so foreign in the past!

Victory. Shall. Be. Mine!

This is so pitiable, a bit sad, a bit pathetic and a whole lot desperate. Thing is, I'm so very far from getting caught up, and the energy level is not uhh aligned towards getting shit done. Yeah I'm socializing, and having fun with friends, but that ain't no justification for abandoning activities that ground you, yanno? Like if I cared about writing more, this would be the first thing I did after waking up, or after work, or before going to bed. Something done during the same time of the day so the 'anchor' stays the same. But oh no, I wait for the worst possible time, when I'm tired and lazy, and don't want to write. Then I don't start the timer. And even when I do, I decide actually I haven't caught up on the affairs of the land, need to go into the mastodon, need to check what the Chinese are upto, oooh this is a great recipe from a random website, oh yeah I should be listening to more songs. Four hours later I'm already five hours behind my regular bedtime, and haven't written one. single. word. Not even one. Pathetic. It keeps adding up. Two weeks later I'm complaining about what a miserable experience it is. Of course. I made it so. If I cared more, we wouldn't be experiencing this, would we. But no, that's what keeps happening over over over.

In the end though I will come up ahead. Writing is, as we've discussed, what defines me. My identity, my schedule, my thoughts, my beliefs and desires. There's no running away from it, there's no shame, embarrassment or fear. One must eventually come back to it, not for the sake for the activity itself, but where it'll take me. It's the car of my life that'll take me to various fun destinations. And what I'm missing out on is doing daily maintenance, filling up on gas, checking tire pressure, not changing engine oil and wiper fluid. It's going to bite me, if I want to get anywhere at a reasonable pace.

Writing is literally accelerating my journey. It's not something that should be abandoned, or put to the end of the day. It needs energy, vigor, motivation and drive. It should be the prime directive. I'll remind this to myself forever.

Monday evening blues is a thing of course, I don't walk or yoga on Mondays, I just can't man

It's quite clear I've got the Monday blues at this point. As in, on Mondays I can't do yoga, I can't write, I can't barely go on walks. That's because Sundays I don't give a rat's ass as I'm still not over the weekend. Monday's there to cover up for the weekend, I think. Gonna finish all my work then and then think about what comes next. Come Monday, nothing gets done, lots more to do, and there's not enough energy from the weekend to take me to walk and write and so forth. So I avoid walking to write, but get no writing done because I'm freaking out. Instead, I nap, I chill, I call family and friends. I will do literally anything to avoid walking, meditating and writing. The very things that ground me. Because the anxiety of existence is too much, because the expectations from the day are overwhelming. Because I've lost sight of the week, and control of my plan and career already. I've already surrendered, given up my dreams and desires for the week by Monday. The rest of the week is just basically recovering from that goddamn day.

I need to get better with Mondays. For realz.

More scenery illustration, friend SK comes, torn pants, pregame, 1974AD, afterparty [Sat 8]

oats fruits and tea breakfast, friend Sk comes with thai food, illustrating a bunch of random scenes, pregaming at belltown, so many friends, torn pants, smoking up, attending 1974AD concert, afterparty and driven home late at night

Writing this on Wednesday afternoon. We're all caught up, besides a small margin, I'm happy with that catching up. If I do 10 posts tomorrow, it'll be as good as completely fine. The quality of the posts is of little concern in times like these. No matter.

On Saturday I had oats and fruits with tea-biscuit for breakfast. Morning was spent cleaning up the apartment. Friend Sk came at noon with thai food and tea, we had some. While he rested I spent a couple of hours illustrating a ridiculous scene. I'm getting better at illustration because I'm daring complex scenes, but also don't understand what a scene is missing. Still very much a noob illustrator. What I'm getting slightly better, and I mean just a tiny wee little bit, is illustrating the human form. I'm nowhere near good at it, but just actively considering and evaluating the human form is good...

Anyway, in the afternoon GS came over and picked us up, we picked up a few more people at went to two of our friends' place in Belltown. My pants' crotch was torn, and friend GS put it back together, phew, because otherwise I'd just throw the trouser out! Everybody had drinks etcetera, I smoked up and had some strong green tea.

We took the bus to town hall and went to the 1974 concert. We were a bit late, because we assumed they'd start late and didn't. The show was fantastic, already wrote the review, but not enough single people of our age group. We went back to the friends' place after the show, and came home around 1.30 in the morning. We spent like 30 minutes talking and then went to bed.

Lowkey week ahead, more writing

 Three days of hackathons (including today) at work ahead, and not much going on besides the recovering for this blog, which is coming up quite well. Which means I don't have to be freaking out about where I am in life, why it's all so fucked over etcetera, because I'm improving. I napped for 3 hours each for the last three days, but today I slept well in the morning. We smoked up a little bit last night as I showed sk Captain Fall, I went to bed early on. At the cost of writing here, but the sleep recovery has been fantastic. Plus two or three cups of tea this afternoon, loud fun music playing in the background, I'm actually popping!

When I say 'more writing', I mean I'll be writing a lot more for my editor. He wants me to dump thousands of words upon him, so we have more choice to reshape the future essay. Fun essays, with a clear idea of who the target audience is. Essays I am personally involved in, writings that have emotional investment into. Material that hasn't been done before. Should be fucking fantastic.

I didn't consider the task of writing an essay to be relevant to my goal of becoming a better 'blog' writer for my website. But actually that's so silly. The reason my blog posts feel so heartless, so dead and uninspired are because they don't have my personality in there. I sold my soul to the devil, genAI fucked me over and polluted my spirit. I'm learning my voice, understanding my angle and where I'm coming from.

Travel plans possibly, maybe?

Quick possible change in travel plans. Nothing is confirmed yet because SK doesn't know what the heck is happening until the very end. One can make plans with him only after he has paid for a non-refundable ticket. Because otherwise he can always bailout.

Anyways, there appears to be a big event scheduled for the end of the month in NoLA, the same I happened to find myself amidst of ten years ago. It was exactly a decade previously that I was in nawlins, and I wanna be there again. The people, the music, the party, it was all so alien yet a bit interesting. So curious. Like a different world. Far too tiring to do it if you live there, monthly, of course, but once in a decade is fine, whatever.

So the new plan is to first fly to Nawlins, be there for a week and a little bit, then fly to upstate to attend the wedding of my college friends, go to NYC for a few short days, and then fly back to Seattle. Then later in the month go back to Boston for attending office meetings for two or three days. October is going to be spent in Nepal. Don't think Europe will happen in the fall because ugh, the Euros make getting their visa so unreasonably hard.

But nothing's set yet. The ticket prices are gonna go up, as we speak, but Sk hasn't gone all 100% yet.. I want to go to Nola because nyc trip isn't really a vacation, more of a hang, but what are my options anyway. Might take a day or two off to spend time with SST but besides that, it's going to be a working-vacay thing...

NOLA would be different, but ah well...We'll see... Fingers crossed.

After two days of nonstop conversation, talking about being single gets boring real quick

 SK and I moaned and complained (to each other) about being single all day long on Saturday and Sunday, and we thought we were done. When friend BB and TB came over, we were planning to chitchat about other things in life. Except I made the mistake of asking T if she knew any pinay nurse friends she could set me up with. That triggered a series of events that led to us talking about relationships for the following five hours. And in the end I was tired. Even after they left, Sk and I kept on talking about it until late at night.

So anyway, we've talked everything there is to discuss on the matter. We've talked about  how we're such fools, what mistakes we've made, how it's actually fine because we're in control, how there's no real risks, and on and on and on. It's getting tiring to even think about those topics again. The summary is this: I don't think either of us are realistically worried about it. Not yet anyway. Because people don't like to talk on and on and on about something they are fearful of, something that stresses them. Regardless, that topic has been talked to death, and it's boring and pointless. There's not much to explore there, no real, original realization. Nothing that hasn't been rehashed endlessly. Every conversation is a repeat, a redo, a re-discussion. We don't need to go through any of those anymore.

Though it was kind of important because it does inspire one to get their shit together, to be more motivated to make a difference in existing circumstances. Moaning and complaining about things doesn't change the way things are. Doing stuff...does. And I'm ready to do. To work hard and push myself. In life generally, in work matters and in my passions. If a partner is gotten as a part of all of that, great. If not, ah well, attempts were made, fun was had, everything else is up in the air...

Review of the 1974 AD concert in Seattle

This will be a quick 'review' because I'm not really an expert (or amateur) in writing about music. But I went to this concert, something that rarely happens and it's worth writing about.

On Saturday evening I went to the 1974AD concert with a bunch of friends. I paid 100$ for the concert, I think we massively overpaid for the seats as we went to sit with friends at the back of the room, losing like half of the ticket's worth. But it's okay, I had my money's worth of fun. Regardless, the next time I get on one of those concerts, I'll get the cheapest ticket because the seating choice is just a suggestion, not a rule.

The food they had outside the event was pretty decent, at least whatever vegetarian items they had.

The event began relatively on schedule. We got there a bit late assuming they'd be late as Nepali performers are bound to, but missed parts of the show. It's fine. The setlist was awesome, they only played the hits, besides one song that they'd recently released. Nobody knew about it and it was a bit of a snoozefest anyway, but that's alright. Fun was had!

We sang along to most of their performances, and the crowd was high in energy. Seeing as it was a Nepali concert, some sort of altercation or fight was only to be expected, but nothing untoward happened. The remaining crowd was mostly middle-aged people with kids, or younger folks in their early twenties, mostly. There were no single women of our age group, but uhhh that's not the performers' problem, so I'll give them a leeway there.

Overall I had a heck of a time, and I'm bound to attend more of these concerts if friends and acquaintances gave me heads-up in advance. Lovely, really!

Lowkey Friday, and several hours of latenight drawing of silly human figures [Fri 7]

kimchi eggs and tofu-beans with quinoa for lunch, volunteer park walk, cheese tomato and mustard sandwich for dinner, silly illustrations until wee hours of the morning

Still writing on Wednesday noontime. We're getting closer, but need to get better.

Had kimchi, eggs and tofu chickpea with quinoa for lunch. In the afternoon I went to Volunteer park and took a really long and lazy walk. I miss it as I've not gone out walking for two days at this point ugh.

Dinner was standard ezekiel bread with tomato cheese mustard etcetera.

Wrote a bit in the evening, napped in the afternoon. Then read a bunch on hindu philosophy, Nepal ukhaan tukkas etc at night. Then for some reason I began illustrating, and kept on going at it till half past three in the morning. I illustrated bodies of men and women, and it was rather silly because I was trying to imagine human bodies without having a proper model, so the proportions were all over the place. But just because of the fact that I'm thinking about it, I think I'm getting better? The idea is to first learn to draw from observation, using one's two physical eyes. And get really good at it. But the ultimate goal is to not need to draw from observation. The artists should be able to have a vision of a scene, and then put it down on paper. Even better, if they can envision their final output consistently, all they need to do is "copy" the picture from their mind's vision into the physical world. I'm not there yet, even drawing from observation is a big massive struggle right now. It does teach one about the correct proportions, techniques and general pointers on how to draw better scenery.

I stopped writing for fun, this ain't no good

The goddamn thing is I've written on this very topic like three times before in this session. The fact of the matter is that I'll have to write two dozen plus posts in this sitting, so some topics are bound to repeat. That's what happens when you stop writing for fun, writing feels like a chores. You bunch up all your blog posts to one single round of posting, and then don't write for the next few days because you don't don't want to. Because you've killed the fun out of it.

The realization came when my editor asked me to write something. I wrote the thousand words he asked in like fifteen minutes, and spent like ten minutes editing. It was pretty decent, I didn't mind. But the writing was fun, it was enjoyable, because I had a clear vision, a goal, and a reason for writing it. More importantly, it had a clear audience. But most important of all, I was writing it for fun, to impress my reader(s), not to get to a bullshit number I'd set for myself.

So that becomes misery. You know when they say, to keep your muscles working, you need to keep challenging yourself. Well I believe I've stopped challenging myself on this blog. I have set myself astounding low expectations, and struggle to meet it because it's not a worthy cause. There's no expectation of these posts being read by anybody, these words being published or republished anywhere else. This is all for the self, for one's memory, future self. And the future self is aware that past self was quite lazy, so the effort isn't all there.

One wonders, how do i spice up my writing habits? There's some techniques I've documented, but are there other ways I can motivate myself to keep going on, keep experimenting, keep making mistakes and improving on them? Like staying where one is, when one desires being somewhere else, is a silly decision, if the idea is to progress.

Progress is a must. I must look at improving. Choosing growth over unchanging chores.