Multum in parvo

(much in little)

Wordle got bought by the NY Times, so I’m not doing it anymore.

Still no letter for Auntie Mary. She’s owed one since October but I’m a bum.

Still processing the four of us getting together on Sunday. It was a lot of feels and it felt almost like group therapy, or more accurately, like the group meditations that we used to do through Beacon. I feel seen, and I listened with intent. I’ve said many times how amazing Jarmo is (he just is, okay, trust me) but Susanna is absolutely amazing and so kind, given her trials.

Thandiwe Newton reported as referring to Sean Penn as a jibbering fool made my morning (he was decrying the ‘feminization of men’ poor sod).  Sean Penn being a freehold scumbag is pretty much a given but her shade was a touch of perfection.

Rehearsed a tiny bit yesterday. Music has pretty much died inside me. I’m listening to music on line, but there’s no music inside me, and I read incoming emails about on line filking with no emotion at all and just delete them.

Pandemic brain is real. Jeff and I went out for food pickup yesterday and WE HAVE NEVER SEEN IN 35 MINUTES OF DRIVING SUCH AN ASSORTMENT OF CLUELESS AND ACTIVELY FUCKED UP DRIVERS. Broad flipping daylight, zero problems with traction and visibility, and drivers were all the words you use when you don’t want to say they’re mentally ill, chemically altered or just dgaf.

The DaVinci Drone

Straight outta Compton ruined by white people

Perdikomata

Above noted is a song by the Greek band Villagers of Ioannina City, a shoegaze/indie/folk band. The lyrics are a dreamy love song to ‘my partridge eyed one’.

 

 

No concert

I was supposed to go to a concert at Massey Hall last night and didn’t. I gave Paul the ticket I bought for him. I’ll hear about the concert today I guess. My anxiety was so bad I just couldn’t face it. I deliberately tried to do something that didn’t involve a lot of travel or an unfamiliar venue, and I just …. couldn’t. I think I’ll give up trying unless it’s filking with locals.

I spend a ton of money on the tickets too. I just couldn’t go. At least Paul did.

Posting the ‘stuck’ story today, it’s finally done. Clocked in just under 9 K words. Yes mOm I will forward the link.

My UK fan is taking a break, but two other people left kudos on my most recent story. (Which is funny, it’s one of the funniest I’ve ever written actually.)

that wasn’t four hours

I got to help a girlfriend, hang with my daughter, make faces at my grandson and get out of the house. I also got to see that cool house in Surrey Suzanne was living at. THE VIEW OF THE NORTH SHORE MOUNTAINS AS THE FOG MELTED AWAY oh my heart. Apparently Keith is going to help Suzanne with her move.

It wasn’t four hours but we did get shit done and she’s got other helpers coming.

By posting this pic on my blog I’m ensuring I’ll be first against the wall when the Chinese walk whistling into Vancouver…. it’s the SS Olympic Bloodbath.

Just said in a reddit comment I HOPE YOUR CLIENT SUES YOUR ASS CLEAN OFF YOUR BODY. lol

My UK fan worked her way through another two stories last night. The consistency is really getting to me.

 

I made a post you can’t see

about my health troubles yesterday because whoo ee that’s a new symptom and I don’t like it. BP a little high, no surprise there. Also, maybe the chocolate was moldy, that probably didn’t help.

Absolutely gorgeous day yesterday, all breathing spring and brilliant sun after FOUR FUCKING DAYS OF FOG – psychologically that was yucky, folks. We took a brief walk and it was lovely.

I can hear Jeff doing the trash for today’s pickup and then we’ll go …

The callous, selfish and uncaring crowd of truckers trying to wake up Canada by making sure as many disabled people die of COVID as possible has claimed that they have 11000 trucks in their convoy on twitter. Given that the Guinness Book of Records says the longest truck convoy in history was in Egypt a few years back and was just under 500 trucks, and given that all the photos they’re showing are actually of BREXIT JFC folks are ya high? The mockery they’re facing is heartwarming.

Today we schlep. I don’t feel scared doing shopping at 7 in the morning. It’s four furtive middle aged men, two stockers, one cashier and four personal shoppers, plus the counter gals in the deli and bakery. That’s it. It’s not many people in that big box. And I have an N95 or two.

Wordle in 5 this morning – 21 straight wins (which means nothing, I’m just participating in a global phenomenon is all.)

I continue to be asymptotically close to finishing the damned airport story, it’s reminding me of that Toronto divorce court judge in the 60s who used to yell GET HER IN BED, GET HER IN BED at the lawyer if he was taking too long proving adultery. YES I AM TRYING TO GET THEM IN BED, RELAX. I’m not really writing porn any more, it’s all HEA M/M AU Destiel.

I have more than 35K karma points on reddit. I got a thousand points just yesterday by telling a young person she is a champ …..and the mother of the bride is not playing in the consensus reality portion of the program.

My UK fan has gamely read another 25,000 words in three of my stories on Archive of Our Own last night. She is literally working her way through my entire posted oeuvre (the story about rescuing kittens was the most recent, but then there was the one about the masturbation club (way more fluffy than it sounds, I know that sounds real unlikely, and the one about the vet who moves in next door to the baker) – almost makes me want to post something just so she has something new. I’m glad she’s providing such innocent evidence of her enjoyment, and I hope she messages me at some point, she’s like my biggest fan at this point. Anyway, I am thinking that I will post them all here over the next year, but under a password, so if people want to read them they can. As Paul used to say all the goddamned time, People who like that sort of thing will find it the sort of thing that they like.

Finished the pho broth. It was so salty, maybe that’s what messed me up.

Another little walk

This time Paul and I went to the park and then ordered Ph`o the broth of the gods WITH all the extras. We had it delivered. I am no longer eating in restaurants. I felt safe enough to do it last fall, but no freaking way, these days. People I know and love who are vaccinated are catching COVID and getting dog-sick, none for me, thanks.

Yesterday I managed a load in the dishwasher and a couple of loads of laundry but now I have to put them away, the story of my life.

Hopefully a small shop today. Yes I should be getting stuff delivered or go for pickup but it’s hard for me to do and it’s not as crowded as a restaurant and I’ve got a mask on the entire time, which… er, you can’t in restaurants.

Still working on the damned airport story. It’s a battle regarding how much self-awareness one character has. I don’t know exactly what it is about my brain that allows me to fall in love with such unseemly ease, but reconstructing that sensation is part of the appeal of writing fanfic and either this character a) understands that he’s in love with the other character and behaves accordingly or b) has misunderstood his own emotions and is definitely not feeling love; this is a rich friendship, not love except in the most general way. Okay there’s some sexual attraction but it’s not returned and the other person makes it easy to ignore. How do you make that either interesting or realistic?

These are the things that trouble my mind. I’m going to make coffee.

 

FOGGGG

Fog has finally lifted a little kinda sorta, but that was an odd couple of days. At one time visibility was LESS than 100 m, which is incredible weather to last for hours around here.

Buster’s food schedule has returned to once a week for the wet food, at least until Jeff finds better food for his digestion. The difficulty is the cheap food which he adores gives him the shits… so he gets yummy food but I don’t want him to sit on me because he smells like shit and he fights like a tiger if I try to wipe his ass. (He can deal with all other cat maintenance with grace, but like Meat Loaf, he won’t do that.)

And speaking of Meat Loaf I remember sitting in Will T.’s Studebaker and listening (for the first time) to Paradise by the Dashboard Light.

Got this morning’s wordle in 3 guesses, which is nice.

I am SO CLOSE to finishing ‘Airport Dreams’. Still don’t think I’m going to finish writing it today.

I internet stalked one of my fanfic fans this morning. She’s a middle aged white woman from England. I kind of have a theme, don’t I? Anyway, like a silly she has the same twitter name as her AO3 user name, so that was like ‘doxxing 101’; I also know what bands she likes….

Did you hear the one about the cork-soaker, the sock-tucker, the cup-stacker, the coke-sacker and the mortar-forker?

Paul took me for a brief walk in the park at the end of the street yesterday, and he hung around for a cuppa. I GOT OUT OF THE HOUSE YESTERDAY.

 

Keith and Mike

Keith is coming over to feed me and Jeff lunch,THE NEXT 150 WORDS DELETED. I’m really looking forward to it, whatever he produces!

Later, Mike’s dropping by and we’re going to go for a car ride in his new used Japanese work truck. I am thinking about making up a snack to take with us. I am very interested in where we might go. I’m thinking we’ll end up sort of all the way up in Squamish or all the way down in Steveston and either way I LOVES ME A CAR RIDE and I’m looking forward to it. Mike’s lived in Vancouver his whole life and he really knows this place well. I always see corners of the city previously unknown to me.

He says he did have COVID but he’s two weeks past symptoms so we should be okay. Poor guy was sick as a dog, but not enough to come to the attention of the health-care system.

I’m finally writing letters again, starting with Auntie Mary.

It would be amazing if Mike and Keith actually SAW each other.

RIP Meat Loaf

He was apparently once referred to in the NY Times as “Mr. Loaf”. Most famous for his association with Jim Steinman the songwriter and producer, and for his star turn as Eddie on both stage and screen in Rocky Horror, he did a lot of acting on network TV in the last ten years of his life and I for one was always glad to see him. He didn’t get vaccinated against COVID (there’s no evidence he did, anyway) and that’s what he died of. The talent is not bigger than science alas.

Jeff’s all over his post vax discomfort. Today I’m going to feed crows, load dishes, run laundry and enjoy this brief moment during which my room is tidy again. Thank you Suzanne. SHE FOUND AN APARTMENT IN BURNABY I’m so happy for her.

Boostered

Jeff got his booster shot yesterday. So did the cashier at Save-On, and believe me, both of them are not fit to be working today. She had to open though. Sigh.

We did a small schlep this morning. Schlep means journey, it’s only in the 20th c acquired the meaning that you’re always carrying things as you schlep.

later…. I survived on hot baths and hot water bottles after my vaccinations, so I was glad enough to fit one up for Jeff.

Twitter is now providing hexagonal NFT icons. Imagine showing your whole ass in public, day and night, about how you’re the latest suckr for tulips and south sea bubbles. Imagine paying for that.  Heaving sighs, I am.

 

Peaceful day

Jeff has fixed my weird character problem on my blog. He literally had to run a script through the whole damned post database to decruft it, for which he has received my abject thanks.

Jeff also decided to get a burger and salad for me from White Spot yesterday and IT WAS GOOD and also the perfect amount of food, zero leftovers. The garden salad made me really happy and I ate every scrap. (Jeff got something else for himself.)

I have to stop eating my food so fast, it really causes problems. I had quite some discomfort around my sternum yesterday but it was gone after our early dinner. CHEW YOUR FOOD, …. SMALL FREQUENT MEALS.

Got wordle in 4 this morning. I’m keeping up a winning streak!

Paul and I will be going for a walk today, rain or shine. I had a lazy day yesterday and Paul mildly disapproves.

 

a day

So much social interaction, my goodness!

Went to Katie’s to watch babby while she cleaned and changed lightbulbs.

Ryker was extremely baby-like and basically didn’t cry for five hours. He smiled at me like HOLY CRAP what a funny face you have, and he kept time when I sang the Monty Python theme. Do babies that young keep time? Apparently so. It felt unbelievably good to hold him, and I realized I was holding him to tell mOm about it afterwards. He’s MUCH stronger than when he was born. Remarkable what an Exceedingly Mellow Dude™ he is. We talked. Katie made spinach salad with soft goat cheese for lunch, DMAN it was good I had seconds. Suzanne came over and cleaned, and it was just lovely to talk to her (we’ll see her again on Thursday). (Paul went to his volunteer job.)

Keith drove me home and came by and hung out with Jeff, and he also did a bit of shopping for us so I have salad fixings again.

I have this really faint memory that I actually wrote a review of the Sparks show I saw in 1975 but finding it will be something.

reasonably productive day yesterday

I did laundry – even managed not to leave a load in the washer overnight so it didn’t go skunky – unloaded and loaded the dishwasher – went for a walk in Fraser Foreshore with Paul – no animals but a lovely seat by the river in the sun with no wind, and hordes of lovely doggies – and then a side quest to the bank and to pick up some chocolate croissants at the Cobbs in Market Crossing (there was a request for same). I also called pOp and got the scoop on what a drag it is, being old.  Call your people while you can. One of my cousins told her pOp she thinks that with the pandemic maybe she’ll never see him again. I have thought this often, but one writes letters and makes phone calls as families did in more scattered and less communicative times.  Wrote, maybe (and only) 200 words.

I appear to be completely recovered from my unpleasant abdomen. I had a short talk with mOm about my provisional diagnosis and self-treatment and she was supportive and helpful. My BP continues to steadily improve, now that the doc has added a diuretic. I’ve noticed no difference in whiz volume though, a blessing I guess.

One of my favourites on twitter this morning suggested that the worst combo of director and musical would be Seth McFarlane and ‘Little Shop of Horrors’ and I nearly barfed through my eyes, my reaction was so poor.

Someone recommended a 550K LoTR fanfic on AO3 and I got one chapter in and bailed. I’ve seen slow-moving stories before but this one was eerily reminiscent of a molasses drop on Europa. It wasn’t badly written in the usual fanfic ways, but s   l   o  w

Katie emailed me for moral support cleaning tomorrow which I said sure no problem. No bending? no problem.

Today, put away the last of the laundry, drink tea, support disabled activists, learn from activists of colour, plan out an embroidery project.

that hurt

Wordle 211 5/6

Given that the word of the day is an industry I used to work in I was choked when I didn’t get it in three.

Wordle is a blazingly popular (on twitter) game in which you guess the contents of a five letter word. I’ve won 11 days in a row now. The above noted graphic shows the progress of your guesses.

I’ll tell you what didn’t hurt, me, when I got up this morning. Virtually all of it’s gone, the muscle and bone and soft tissue pain I’ve been experiencing for days. My muscles in my abdomen are sore from guarding but I slept soundly and well and feel great today. Or greatish. Great adjacent? Approaching great? Maybe I’ll even touch an instrument today, I haven’t been practicing.