Author: scrivener

Didn’t sleep well Saturday night, and stayed up too late despite my tiredness. But I’d taken care of things Saturday so I could watch football Sunday without worrying about having to get a million things done, so I got up and watched football.

I was going to have something unhealthy with rice and eggs for Sunday breakfast, a processed meat of some sort (sadly, I have a few options), but when I put water into the rice pot I realized I had bugs. Lots of tiny, tiny ant-looking bugs but way smaller.

I keep my rice and quinoa in a cooler in the carport. In a cooler because it’s pretty bug-proof. In the carport because in my old age, I seem to have gotten to a point where it’s nearly impossible to measure rice without spilling some. I prefer having to sweep spilled rice off the carport floor to having to sweep it up off the kitchen floor. It’s done the job for quite some time.

Most of the time, the rice is in its original plastic bag, inside a zippered bag, but in these lockdown days, I’ve taken to buying ten-pound bags of rice rather than five-pound, because for a while rice was scarce and I’m eating far more meals at home. So white rice in a five-pound bag was in a zippered bag; brown rice in a ten-pound bag was just closed with a few folds and a binder clip. Quinoa was in the original zippered bag it comes in.

There were so many tiny, tiny bugs in the cooler I couldn’t tell which rice they got into. Looked like both, actually. There were some inside the zippered bag, even. So I bagged it all up and tossed it. There’s no sense in eating possibly contaminated, infested rice just to save a few bucks. Hosed out the cooler. I’m still going to use it to hold my rice but I guess I’ll keep it in the laundry room, which is nearest the front door, so I can still measure it in the carport.

Rice gets infested. It’s a fact of life. If you’re lucky, you only have to deal with it once in a very long time, or it’s got bugs in it when you get it home from the store, because grocery stores refund your money without even blinking. They know.

I still had two nice crowns of broccoli in the fridge from my last trip to the grocery store twelve days ago, and they still looked great. I need to figure out how I did that. So I blanched them both and made instant mashed potatoes. Stirred in the leftover Om cheese from a week (or so) ago in half of it and some leftover gorgonzola from longer ago than that.

Broccoli and cheesy mashed potatoes for brunch. I could eat that almost every weekend if it weren’t so darned carby. It was enough food that I didn’t even start thinking of dinner until it was time to hit the grocery store at about 10:30 in the evening.

I did a few chores, worked on a little bit of writing, considered my Christmas list, solved two Sunday crosswords, and tidied up a tiny bit. I took a nice two-hour nap.

Went to the supermarket after doing a little bit of meal planning, but was stymied in the Asian aisle when I discovered there was no mochiko. Frick. I already had everything on my list in my cart. I paid for it anyway — the bill was a bit steeper than usual, but I also bought twenty pounds of rice — and ran to Long’s to see if there was mochiko there. Nope.

Great. Now I’m considering ordering some from Amazon.

My something different this time was potato starch, which is for chichidango, if I ever get to make it. I’m kind of annoyed that recipes specifically call for potato starch, since I already have more cornstarch and tapioca starch than I will likely use up before crawlies get into it. I’m going to have to ask Mochi Girl if it really matters.

The Manoa Safeway opens at 5:00 these days (in normal times, it’s open 24 hours). I may pop in to see if there’s mochiko there when I do my laundry this week.

I’ve been pretty moody this past week. I can’t say where it’s coming from, but I’m leaning toward pandemic blues. A little bit of boredom, a little bit of missing people, a little bit of not knowing what the holidays are going to be like, and a little bit of a sense of lost time, not taking advantage of the days while I have them, in these, my waning years. I’m going to be 52 in January without ever really being 51. There’s also a considerable feeling of impending despair on election day.

I know none of this is unique to me, but knowing doesn’t make it less of a downer.

On the way home from the grocery store, I picked up some chicken nuggets from McD’s. And fries. And a small chocolate shake. And a large Diet Coke with extra ice.

I’m not proud of myself.

As usual, there wasn’t much texting Sunday, which is the day I typically need it least. Crush Girl texted me about a meal she was preparing and was a little nervous about. I texted her to tell her my mochiko woes.

And the world keep on turning
And the sun keep on burning
And the children keep learning
How to grow up big and strong

One of Mark Heard’s best songs. Covered by Rich Mullins on Mullins’s best record, and performed here at Cornerstone ’97. Popped into my head today as I thought about the course of the world. Haven’t been able to shake it.

Strong man take no prisoner
Favor no plea
He leave no gold in teeth of enemy
He fit and dominant
He rise above
He not have the word that mean love

45 has COVID-19. Even in the maelstrom of the election season, best wishes from people on ideological shores separated (or connected) by an ocean of cultural differences. And still the posturing of an authoritarian despot, propped up by his people to appear as big and strong as always, and appearing pretty much the opposite.

Rich Mullins died at 41, ten years younger than I am now. Mark Heard died at 40, five years before Mullins. Good people who seemed to want only to create meaningful art.

Strong man beat the plowshare
He forges sword
He take the flower and he curse the thorn
He crush the serpent
He bite the fruit
His hand is absolute

And the world keep on turning
And the sun keep on burning
And the children keep learning
How to grow up big and strong
How to grow up big and strong

If you want someone to connect with in these endless pandemic days, I encourage you to leave a comment. I’ll send my contact info. Don’t go through this alone.

Lockdown Sundays have been pretty productive, over all, since they began. When the NFL season kicked off four weeks ago, I continued to be productive, but it took a lot of work, not to mention hours in the office a bit later than I’d like on Sundays.

So I took care of the office stuff Saturday morning. Went to the beach early, snagged the second-best parking stall, watched the daylight show up — it wasn’t as lovely as Friday morning but it didn’t suck. It was my fourth morning in five days at the beach. I got a pretty good swim, with an early hard sprint and then kind of a cruise. There weren’t nearly as many people in the water Saturday as the day before, thank God.

I got curbside takeout at Zippy’s (a breakfast bento) and headed for the office. I hoped to have the space all to myself, but our HR director came in right after me. Her office is far away from mine, so there was really no threat, and we kept to our own spaces. Still, I was a little nervous and it distracted me.

I didn’t get enough of the hard work done, taking care of a few little tasks, including some administrative paperwork and silly things like putting my new parking sticker in my windshield and restocking the office snack trough.

In near-desperate need of a nap, I got home and went right to bed. I seriously didn’t care if I didn’t get up until Sunday morning, but it was more like 3:00 Saturday, a good two hours or so.

After a few tiny chores, I goofed off on my phone, read the news, listened to music, watched Pitch Perfect, and prepped for dinner.

When I went to the grocery store two weekends ago, I did a little bit of meal planning for a change. I made that Instant Pot beef stroganoff, which started great before I ruined it with my failed slurry. I made the map tofu, which was terrific if slightly tiresome as leftovers. Last night was the third thing I prepared for the first time: Instant Pot Spanish rice.

I made it twice, because I misread the recipe the first time, using three tablespoons of spices where it called fo three teaspoons. They say anyone who can read can cook, and I suppose the inverse is also true (not the converse! Stop misusing the word converse!). I still had all the ingredients out so I just tried again. It came out really good. I was pleased. I scooped some of my lazy burrito filling onto the plate and made it beans and rice for a late dinner.

There wasn’t much texting Saturday. Crush Girl a couple of times, mostly to send a photo of my Spanish rice. Ali a couple of times to return to some earlier topics (books and depression). Sylvia to talk about exercise and Spanish rice.

I’ve a feeling I won’t be nearly as productive Sunday as I hope, but whatever. I made it possible, and I’ll take it as a first step. Hoping to hit the grocery store too, as the cupboard is boring.

Leave me a comment if you’re looking for someone to connect with in these dismal days of disease. I’ll send you contact info.

Happy Sunday.

Friday should have been a better day. I was unparalyzed from my being productive Thursday, right? Right. It didn’t quite work out that way.

I woke up at 4:00 to hit the beach. Even by Ala Moana sunrise standards, it was a beautiful morning. The full moon shone over the blackish-blue on the Kewalo end as the sun came up over the Waikiki condos. I was initially torn between wanting to get a series of sunrise photos and wanting to see it from in the water as I swam through the lightening water.

I chose the water, of course. I swam pretty hard for the first half of what’s been my usual distance lately, then cruised most of the way back. By the time I was done, there was a remarkable number of stand-up paddleboarders in the water and more swimmers than usual on a Friday morning. I was happy to be ahead of them.

I hit the BK drive-through for breakfast and ordered a ridiculous amount of food, enough to cover me for breakfast and lunch even with my metabolism pumping.

Got off to an okay start at work, but then major distractibility kicked in. I couldn’t focus on anything. We had a 3:00 all-staff Zoom meeting, and I did okay during the meeting, but its placement in my workday added to my difficulty with sustained focus. I finally got something turned in, a revision of one of the things I submitted Thursday, but I’m making myself do a few more things over the weekend. Penance.

I had some lazy burritos for dinner while I watched Pitch Perfect again, then crashed unintentionally while it played through a second time. I spent the next few hours in and out of consciousness, never really getting up to shut things down until around 4:00, when I just gave up, and got ready for the beach.

There was a lot of texting and office Skyping all day. I shouldn’t say what most of it was, but someone in the office created a fun little activity to make the interesting Zoom meeting even more interesting. It was remarkably fun and kind of bonding for a few of us who participated.

Crush Girl and I texted intermittently all day and into the evening, too. So it was a busy day of communicating with coworkers who’ve become friends, and with just friends.

None of the new metal releases this week look very interesting, so I spent a lot of Friday getting caught up with some new stuff from the past few weeks. The new Deftones was an interesting first listen, but I got tired of it pretty quickly. I like the idea of Deftones but the reality just doesn’t work for me. The new Ayreon has moments but it’s a little on the boring side, and there’s a narrator. Ugh. No thanks.

The new album by the Ocean, Phanerozoic II: Mesozoic | Cenozoic is more like it. Amazing album, if not quite as good as they’ve been. I was pleasantly surprised by this black metal band I’d never heard of until this week, Havukruunu. Their new album, Uinuos syömein sota, made for nice background music while I worked. I’ve never been much into black metal, but since this lockdown began, I’ve really come to appreciate a good deal of it. Something about the dark emptiness, the echoing kind of agony-filled despair works for doing some difficult writing or mundane chores. I wasn’t expecting the solos to be so good, too.

Anyway. Here’s to the weekend. I’ve got a lot of writing to do. I hope I can get to it all, but if I can just put a little dent in it, I think I’ll be okay.

Leave a comment if you lack adequate connectivity in these hollow, abyssmal days of pandemic. We can share some echoing, agony-filled despair or something. I’ve got a good soundtrack for that!

(I wrote the first part of this Thursday review on Friday evening. I wrote the second part Saturday afternoon, past five o’clock)

After a short nap, I got up, brushed my teeth, and got back to work. Finally, sometime past sunrise Thursday, I got these letters drafted. Two versions of the same short letter because I didn’t like the first one, although I think there’s a good idea in there somewhere. My supervisor later agreed: the second version was better, but we’re holding on to the first version for ideas in another publication.

I took another nap, about forty-five minutes in the late morning, then got up and just cranked out the story that’s been killing me. It’s still not great, but it’s better than it was, and here’s what I think happened: I was back in my accustomed (‘though not recently experienced) state of extreme sleep deprivation, a condition I’ve done a lot of writing in, desperate, exhausted, undistracted writing.

File under: stupid writer tricks.

Anyway, the paralysis seems to be broken. I’ll take it, and I will hopefully ride the momentum into Friday, my usual most productive day.

I did a few chores after work, watched the news, and grabbed takeout for dinner from Ahi & Vegetable. A lovely sashimi salad, with ahi, salmon, and hamachi. I was craving fresh raw fish and some uncooked greens.

Breakfast was a can of chili on leftover hapa rice. My fridge is low on fresh things, although I have a few eggs, some broccoli I keep forgetting about, and some Portuguese sausage, among a few other things I could probably toss together. I skipped lunch. Snacked a little on maple creme Oreos.

It’s disheartening to stay up (practically) all night to produce what should be just a few hours’ worth of writing. The self-loathing and dread are kind of demoralizing, partially because I know it’s not just this weird magical aspect of creating. It’s distractibility, laziness, and avoidance. Yes, writing can be very difficult, and forcing difficult work out of wherever it comes from is a kind of painful. But I know how to do it, and I know it’s better to just get it out, but I still have days, nights, and weeks like this.

It’s hyberbole rooted in some amount of truth: it’s like opening a vein sometimes.

I watched Pitch Perfect again as I ate my lovely sashimi salad. I haven’t even watched most of the bonus material, the primary reason for the purchase; nor have I moved on to the sequels. I think I’ll just watch the sequels and then get back to the bonus materials, which include two commentary tracks on the original film.

I don’t expect to get stuck rewatching the sequels. Pitch Perfect is entertaining, engaging, well-intentioned, and terribly flawed. Its sequels are stupid and really stupid, and progressively less entertaining, although still kind of engaging on the strength of their casts.

I think I only texted with Crush Girl Thursday. A lot of back-and-forth throughout the day about dinner choices, some common friends, and this online puzzle game we’ve both gotten into. I’ve known about it for some time, but never got into it until I found out she was hooked on it. Now I spend about fifteen minutes a day on it, usually after I do the crossword.

As you can see, I usually have some room in my day for more texting or DMing. If you need someone to connect with, just hit me up in the comments.

It was a productive but miserable day. I was happy to turn in early.

I woke up about half an hour before my 2:15 a.m. Wednesday morning alarm, considered trying to wring the last 30 minutes of sleep out of the sleep gods, but figured I might as well get up and get going.

At the laundry, I worked on edits for Hawaii Stories, instead of my usual journaling. Had a late Tuesday dinner (Big Mac combo from McD’s). Read a little bit of football news.

I again wasn’t sure when I started out if the beach was in my morning plan, since I’d been Tuesday morning and haven’t done consecutive days since before the lockdown. My feeling was “Why not?” which was good enough a reason to go.

I’m so glad I did. I snagged a good parking space on the Kewalo end, goofed around on my phone a while, and jumped in shortly before sunrise. I also thought if I went in, I’d take it easy, but I swam pretty hard again. It was rewarding, mentally and physically. Probably emotionally and spiritually too. I didn’t want to get out of the water.

Next week I’ll try going three mornings in a row to see how my body handles it. I thought I might do a third morning Thursday (when I’m writing this) but I’ll get into that tomorrow.

Drove straight home, made breakfast, and got to work. Sorta.

I just couldn’t get that story the way I wanted. I had my weekly one-on-one with my supervisor to talk about it. She was supportive and understanding, but also made it clear that I’ve got deadlines. They may be soft deadlines, but every day I don’t move the work forward is a day our graphic designer can’t get started on the annual report my stories are going into.

I spent the workday not getting anywhere. Then I tried to keep at it into the evening. I figured I’d just pull an all-nighter, and once I gave myself permission to do that, of course I just goofed off until a short nap, from like midnight to three.

Brunch Wednesday was corned beef hash and eggs on hapa rice. It was delicious. Such a vice. Dinner was leftover mapo tofu on leftover hapa rice. It was fine, but I’ve decided this is a dish I can’t have as a main dish. I’m normally fine having a side dish as a main dish, but this isn’t going to be one of them, if I ever make it again.

Ali got back to me after a week of unanswered texts. I kind of just stopped sending her messages — I didn’t want to be like the guy who fills her voicemail box. But she was studying late and she reached out Wednesday evening. We had a nice conversation about school and work, and I caught her up on some former coworkers.

Vicky asked me if I wanted to take advantage of a must-order-by-the-end-of-September special she was offering, but I had to tell her I’m still considering a purchase. I’m just not ready to decide. Sharon and I traded a ton of texts about the same former coworkers. Crush Girl and I talked about this online game we’re both into, and a book she’s listening to now that I read a few years ago. Oh, and dinner. Of course we talked about dinner.

I listened to a lot of new music, but I’ll get into that later. Note to self.

Spoiler: the writer’s paralysis kind of worked itself out Thursday, but I’ll write about that Friday morning.

Leave a comment if you want someone to connect with in these lockdown daze. You don’t have to go through this alone, and hopefully you haven’t, lo these nearly seven months. Yikes.

I’m writing about Tuesday at 4:12 in the morning Thursday. Consequently, the details may be hazy, fabricated, or simply glossed over in the interest of some kind of accuracy.

Got up early and hit the beach. It was especially lovely in the fifteen minutes right before the sun came up. I hadn’t been in the ocean since Friday morning, when my goal is not to go more than two days. So I swam pretty hard and stayed in the water a little longer.

I picked up breakfast on the way home, another P&W omelette from Pancakes and Waffles. It was enough food to cover lunch, too.

I started the workday with an email to my supervisor asking for one day’s indulgence. I was frustrated with myself for being unable to make the a donor story look the way I wanted. I knew it was probably fine as it was, but I’m struggling against writing these things so they all look alike, despite a long list of reasons not to worry about it. She understood. She knows I get into these pits of creative despair. At least I recognized it this time and could advocate for a little bit of leeway. I consider this progress.

Aaaaaand I spent the day with writer’s paralysis. It sucked.

I had the Oakland Athletics playoff game with the White Sox on while I tried to write. It actually soothed me and got me in a good mindspace, despite the Athletics’ losing the stupid game.

A couple of times, I muted the game and tried to put the presidential debate on the TV, but I just couldn’t bear it for more than a minute at a time, so I just gave up. Right after, though, I did enjoy watching Twitter explode.

Washed and sterilized my water jugs. Packed my laundry. Ate a few potato chips and a few maple creme Oreos and went to bed early.

There was some decent texting Tuesday. Sylvia woke up to find the water in her apartment was shut off, so we had a few amusing exchanges. Some kind of emergency elsewhere on the property. Jennifer sent me another otter video. Very cute. Crush Girl and I commiserated about our respective work-related travails. And we talked about food, of course. Right before bed, I texted Ryan to tell him I’d edit the Hawaii Stories content while doing my laundry, which is why I didn’t write this then.

You could be in on this sparkling digital communication too, if you need someone to connect with in these cloudy coronadays. A little friendly reminder that you don’t have to go through any of this miserable crap alone. Just leave a comment.

Monday was the first Monday I was at work since before Labor Day. I was so tired from the stupid vampire hours Sunday that I didn’t even think about the beach. Just dragged myself from between the sheets and got to work at the appointed time.

The sad thing about my tidy file cabinet drawers is that I spent so much time on them and don’t even get to appreciate them since I haven’t officially worked in my cube since the middle of March and don’t expect to before 2021. My Monday would have been a lot better if I’d used that time getting my actual work done.

Or finishing my edits on Hawaii Stories. Argh.

Am I spread thinly these days? Gosh, it doesn’t feel like it.

I am not complaining, but this writing life is so strange sometimes.

After work I did some housecleaning related to the Beast. Also related to the Monster. Some of those stray, severed limbs I said were hidden about. I took care of their disgustingness. I’m certain I’m still not done with that, but it’s nice that what was a weekly two-hour ordeal has been reduced to occasional fifteen-minute unpleasantness.

There was room in the trash bin (sort of a no-no nowadays), so I cut up and flattened a good number of empty Amazon boxes, and that filled the bin right up. Making my life less of a shambles, one weekly trip to the curb at a time.

Breakfast was corned beef hash, hapa rice, and eggs again. I didn’t want unused portion from breakfast Sunday to sit in my fridge long, as that’s the kind of thing that tends to be orphaned. No room for orphans in my little dorm fridge. That was good to cover me for lunch too, with some clementines early, and a few maple creme Oreos later.

Dinner was leftover mapo tofu. I think it tasted better the second day, and there’s plenty left.

Jennifer sent me a text link to some video of the orphaned sea otter (orphans again…) eating ice. Very cute. Sylvia texted me to ask about where the good spots are for parking at Ala Moana if she wants to jump in the water where there are no rocks. I gave her my advice. Try the Kewalo end, beginning twenty yards east of the first showers and you can jump in anywhere east until just past the lifeguard tower. Then it’s rocky until just east of the pavilion, after which it’s smooth sailing all the way to Magic Island.

Crush Girl and I traded just a few text messages. She was doing something fun and I preferred not to bother her, mostly. I still did, but only near the end of the day.

I went to bed early but slept terribly again Monday night. Woo. The hits keep coming!

Don’t forget to reach out if you’d like some connectivity during this everlasting pandemic. Just leave a comment.

The worst thing about not sleeping well Saturday night is the decisions one must make Sunday morning. Get up in time for the 7:00 football games, or sleep in and be content with whatever the late games are?

A quick look at the schedule made the choice for me. The Raiders-Patriots game was on. I had plans for Sunday and I chose tiredness over accomplishing less. Never mind that some of the accomplishments were of trivial worth.

I spent daylight hours mostly doing small housekeeping things and a little bit of work. When the late game — the Packers and Saints — ended, I went to the office. My software didn’t need updating, which is usually the only thing that gets me in there these days, but I left some housekeeping unfinished last weekend.

I took care of some busy work. Forms, emails, getting my parking sticker updated, that kind of thing, then continued work on my file cabinet. My files may not be super organized now, but the cabinets are tidy as heck. I brought most of my stuff home for the kind of sorting I’ve been doing on stuff in my house; I also took some stuff from home to the office. I have a rather huge collection of pre-printed stationery, stuff I collected during my teaching years.

It became something of a signature of mine to print my forms on pretty stationery. I was kind of overwhelmed by the amount of forms I had to keep track of every day when I started at Assets, and one way for me to keep it all straight was to print it all on its own stationery. Beach stationery for the daily attendance. Flower statinery for the study hall assignment slips. That kind of thing.

I also had a few assignments for my frosh computer applications courses involving preprinted stationery, so I purchased it whenever it was on sale in the office supply stores, which was almost every season. Halloween paper went on sale in November; Easter paper went on sale in April.

Of course I held on to it all because when I left Assets I thought I’d be back in some classroom somehwere before too long. This is unlikely now, so I’ve brought the stationery with me wherever else I’ve worked. It comes in handy.

I hadn’t taken it to my current job because I packed it away when I left the engineering firm and didn’t get around to unpacking it until decluttering Thursday evening. It looks pretty great in my file cabinet drawer at the office now. All that’s missing is someone to need it.

It felt good to declutter my cubicle space. I still have a little more to do, but not much more. The file cabinets are so tidy! It’s very satisfying.

I got home very tired, but I made the mistake of firing up Pitch Perfect and got sucked in. By the time I was done, I still had a few Sunday evening chores to take care of, which lasted halfway through a second viewing. Then I read a little, did the Monday crossword, and felt the naughty thrill of enjoying the super-early hours for the first time in a while. I let the vampire out of the cave and it reveled.

Fell asleep somewhere around 3:30, guilty, slightly ashamed, dreading the alarm clock, and writing off the planned Monday morning ride to the beach.

Breakfast was some corned beef hash and eggs with hapa rice. Lunch-dinner was Korean takeout, picked up on my way to the office. It was also a late-night snack. Somewhere in between, I had a couple of clementines.

Crush Girl texted a few times. She had some work stress, and I was happy to let her vent. I hope she works it out; things seem kind of bad.

If you need someone to chat with in these dark days, I invite you to leave a comment. I’ll send you my contact info and we can exchange complaints about work and the Raiders. Or whatever.

Slept pretty terribly Friday night. I’m very disappointed in myself.

I started the weekend with the usual Saturday morning stuff. Crossword puzzle. News. Podcasts. Stupid phone games. A little bit of texting.

I called my parents in the late morning. They seem still to be hanging in there, which was nice to hear. I spent close to an hour with them, most of it with my dad. My mom says her phone calls with her friends are a lot like my phone calls with her. How are you? About the same; how are you? About the same. Anything new? Not really. You? Nope.

I also spent some time working on my Christmas shopping. It’s difficult to tell what the Christmas season is going to look like, including my employment status, so I think I’m going to try to get my gifts taken care of by the beginning of November.

I had a couple of clementines for a late breakfast, then a small bag of chips for a snack. So by the time I got lunch-dinner started, I was pretty hungry.

For some reason, I always assumed mapo tofu was complicated to prepare. That local chef acquaintance who died last week? He posted a photo on IG just a few hours before of the dish he made that morning: mapo tofu. So I had it on my mind when I went to the grocery store Monday night, and found a good recipe.

It does have a lot of ingredients, which is probably why I thought it would be more challenging, but the actual preparation isn’t complicated at all. I was quite pleased with the results, too. I had too generous a serving with some hapa rice (actually 75-25 brown-white) while I did a little bit of writing.

I put a few podcasts on while I decluttered. Got through a medium-sized plastic file box and a large tub. I think about half the stuff in both containers went to the trash, but these were at the top of a large stack in my living room, so it’s recent stuff, actual stuff in current use. However, this stuff is (mostly) now in assigned spaces. Some of it (a few concert posters, a few ticket stubs, a few notes from friends) is keepsake stuff I still don’t know what to do with, so it went into a keeper tub, which went to the storage corner of my laundry room.

It was good progress, especially since the only reason I actually got into it was because I thought I should. I wasn’t feeling it until I was well into the task. But yay.

I rewarded myself with some idle, wasted time playing stupid phone games. Again. Got the munchies a little late, one of the rare instances where I craved something sweet, so I broke open a package of maple creme Oreos I’ve had in the pantry for a few weeks. They’re good, and I enjoyed four of them before shutting everything down for the night.

Crush Girl and I sent a few texts back and forth, sporadically through the day. One of the movies we talked about Thursday was in the news late Friday, so I sent her a link. Jocelyn and I traded some Gchat messages about Juju Chang’s newphew, a pitcher for the Dodgers.

After three straight three-day weekends, I’m going to have some diffculty getting into the groove this week. Gotta make the most (and maybe the least, at the same time) of my Sunday.

But I’ve got room for you, if you need someone to connect with. Leave a comment. I’ll send contact info.

I got to the beach shortly before sunrise Friday. The water was nice, but there were quite a few more swimmers than usual, and more of them swimming in packs. I certainly don’t begrudge the group swimmers their camaraderie, but they always swim abreast, which means an always-yielder like me has to go far out of my way to give them the berth wide enough for my comfort. There was a moment when a large pack was coming up behind me while a smaller pack came toward me from ahead. I got out of their way as they converged and fought the annoyance down.

It doesn’t make sense to be annoyed if I’ve got a larger personal-space bubble than other swimmers, who based on my experience have teeny-tiny bubbles.

I picked up a loco moco from Bob’s BBQ on Dillingham. The loco is inexpensive there and rather good for the price, but it’s not quite as satisfying as I need after a good swim, so I also went through the drive-through at the neighboring Taco Bell for a little bit more.

My focus Friday was completing edits for the staff newsletter, and I also did edits on an appeal letter from one of the higher-profile units at UH Manoa. Worked a little on my stories but not enough. I’m going to have to do them over the weekend.

It took me a while to find my groove, but I eventually settled in and got the stuff done. I have to say I’m fairly proud of the results, something I don’t feel every day.

I watched the news, did some crosswords, listened to podcasts, and read some football news. Played some silly phone games in my bed and crashed there without intention. So I got up shortly before three and wrote Wednesday’s journal while giving the new Public Enemy a spin.

There are some solid tracks there, and it’s something of a relief to see that Flavor Flav is back in the mix. My early favorite tracks are “GRID” with Cyprus Hill, “Public Enemy Number Won” with Ad-Rock, Mike D, and Run-DMC, and “Smash the Crowd” with Ice-T and PMD. There’s an update of “Fight the Power” called “Fight the Power: Remix 2020” with Nas, Rapsody, Black Thought, Jahi, YG, and ?uestlove. I like it a lot but it’s not an improvement on the original. If I saw them in concert and they broke this one out instead of the original, I’d be super annoyed.

Friday I also spun the new album from The Ocean, Phanerozoic II: Mesozoic | Cenozoic. Musically it’s a lot less heavy and dense than my favorite work from them, but it’s still quite a terrific album. I’m going to have to sit down with the lyrics and see how it works thematically. Strong contender for best metal album of the year.

Crush Girl texted me a photo of her latest baking accomplishment. It looked pretty great. We talked a little about one of her favorite movies from her childhood. I love talk like this.

Sylvia and I texted all evening. She’s got some Hilo acquaintances staying over for unexpected, strange reasons, but she’s such a trouper. Sharon and I texted some work talk, actual business related stuff and not just office chitchat. Vicky texted me to let me know there’s a special for new members, but it expires at the end of the month. I told her to send me the order form but not to get her hopes up.

How the heck is it almost the end of September? Uggggggh.

For lunch, I finished off the beef stroganoff, and for dinner I unwrapped a small hunk of Oma cheese from the Jasper Hill creamery. Didn’t finish it off, thinking it might be good to cook with. It’s a good, creamy, slightly nutty, somewhat pungent cheese; I enjoyed it with some crackers. A balsamic vinegar drizzle cut through the pungency and added a little bit of depth. Some local honey did very little for it, but I think something sweet would really add something.

All righty. Bring on the weekend. And leave a comment if you’d like someone to connect with in these pandemic days. I’ve got bandwidth for that.