Author: scrivener

I felt better when I got out of bed Wednesday. Not completely back, but that lack of energy was gone, so I put in a fairly honest day’s work.

I had a phone meeting with my supervisor about the stories I’m working on. One’s going to be pretty easy, assembled from pieces of stuff already published. The other’s going to take a bit of legwork, possibly a phone call or two. So I worked a bit on that, then did some editing to an appeal letter sent by a coworker in a department I don’t get to work with very much, someone I see maybe once a year. It was nice to do a thing for them.

Breakfast was late again — around noon. I did a quick stir-fry of bean sprouts, watercress, and won bok. Set that aside then did a lazy fried rice — just hapa rice, salt, and pepper fried in olive oil, then two eggs cracked over it and scrambled in. It went great with the veggies and was a rather pleasing meal. Reminded me of college.

Lunch at around 6:00 was just a small dish of potato salad. I wasn’t too hungry.

I’m having my dinner now at the laundry — a Big Mac combo.

The news continues to be depressing. The governor of Georgia decreed that any local law mandating the use of face masks in that state was void. So the Atlanta mayor’s own decree requiring masks is invalid now.

I’ve got a very Republican friend who sometimes reads this space. I disagree with him on almost every issue, which is weird because I’m a conservative (libertarian, remember?) and we can’t seem to find a lot of common ground. When Barack Obama was elected president, he said this country would “go to Hell in a handbasket” under his presidency.

I think a lot of conservatives might agree this actually happened, although I think their argument is weak. However, I think it’s difficult to argue against our going to Hell right now in a vessel quite a bit larger than a handbasket. Tens of thousands of people each day are catching this disease because Republican leadership in certain parts of the country, egged on by the president, are spitting in the face of science in the name of personal liberty. And that’s giving them the benefit of the doubt. A less charitable interpretation would be that in order to appease the president and his base, they are willing to let people die.

It just makes me want to scream.

A friend of mine has a friend who teaches in that Orange Country school district in the news this week. She sent me a quote from a letter the school board sent to teachers blatantly refusing to allow social distancing or face masks in classrooms. I wouldn’t publish this because it’s a reliable source (my friend)’s reliable source, so I’m allowing that it might not be totally true. Still, the audacity is infuriating.

Meanwhile Californians continue to die.

As should be obvious, a great number of my friends is in education in Hawaii. One of them who teaches at a prominent independent school says that as of now, with a month to go before classes resume, the plan is to conduct school in person.

My question is how prepared is the school for the preventable death of one of its teachers? I mean, forget students who would be horrible enough to lose to this thing, but one of its employees forced to come to work at a time when this disease isn’t remotely under control and whose numbers continue to climb? That’s negligence at best. It’s malicious apathy at worst.

Another friend who works in an office downtown was recently told to come back into the office for work. Now someone in the office has a housemate who tested positive. The coworker hasn’t yet been tested, and the office hasn’t been closed. She’s opting for working at home, though. Thank goodness.

I recognize and accept that I’m typing this from a position of almost extreme privilege, but come on. This dedicated libertarian (lower-case L) thinks the government exists for a few very specific reasons, but the health and safety of the citizenry is probably the top of the list. Whatever it costs us to keep people safe at home, even if it’s cash handouts and eviction moratoria, it’s a justifiable cost. It’s a freaking mandated cost, mandated by the very nature of democratic (lower-case D) government.

I just took a moment from writing this to see if Netflix has either Gaslight film on DVD. It has the original 1940 version, but not the 1944 version with Ingrid Bergman. Amazon has the 1944 film for rent (cheap) and UH Manoa has it for loan (free because of my employer’s association with the university). I might prefer to spend the $4 to watch it on Prime than to drive to campus during library hours and pick it up.

I actually got myself to bed at 9:00 and to sleep probably within fifteen minutes. Got up at 2:15 and I feel tireder than on most laundry mornings when I get much less sleep. I’m thinking I may not be fully recovered from whatever yuckiness that was on Tuesday. My tiredness may also be related to my really not wanting to come in today to do this. I finally got going because I don’t want to deal with crowds at the beach Friday or during the weekend, but I just realized today’s the last day of the jellyfish influx so dang. There went that plan.

It’s okay. I think I need sleep more, and this will give me a few more hours before work.

Connections were interesting Wednesday. Sylvia sent me a photo of an antique reading chair from the 18th century. It has a swing-arm book stand coming out of one arm and another swing-arm candlestick holder coming out of the other. Brilliant. Chair looks pretty comfy too. The backrest doesn’t abut just the rear side of the chair, like most chairs today. It wraps around the corner, so it abuts two sides, leaving the opposite corner to go between your legs, one leg on each side of the corner. I don’t know why chairs aren’t build like this anyway. I find most chairs horribly uncomfortable, but this looks like it would work. I wonder if it’s to avoid having women sit in what some would consider an indelicate position. Pssh. If I had this thing I’d convert that candlestick holder to a drink holder.

Someone in the engineering group text sent a link to an article about a squirrel testing positive for bubonic plague.

Sharon and I traded more thoughts on Bloody Wednesday and our departed coworkers. Yeah, we’re all still dealing with it.

The writing partner sent me a progress report on her newfound verve in rewriting her novel. I said I would probably have time this morning at the laundry to take a look at it, which I will do as soon as I post this.

Crush Girl and I traded some thoughts on her dinner plans this week. It’s related to our earlier conversation when she asked me if I’d ever dined at a couple of restaurants she named. I had.

Laptop’s about to run out of juice. It was at 100% when I started this an hour or so ago and now it’s down to 38%. I really need to replace the battery.

Let me know (in comments below) if you’re looking to connect. I’m here for texts, DMs, and IMs if you want to reach out.

Not feeling well.

I was moderately productive at work, responding to a few emails, tying up some loose ends, managing some files, and doing the background on my next story. Around noon I started to feel weak, just a total lack of energy. Something inside felt a little unsettled too, so after my 2:00 Zoom meeting, I took the rest of my day off for sick leave and retired immediately to bed.

Following were several hours of that sick-sleep. Falling unconscious in odd positions (face pressed forcefully into the mattress, mouth wide open, one arm dangling off the side of the bed, butt sticking up at an impossible angle), waking suddenly to shift into some other weird position, look at the phone, try to read something on it, then dropping off again with some vague awareness that time is passing but not really knowing how much.

I forced myself up at round 9:00 to hit the grocery store, which was unusually crowded at 10:30 (half an hour before closing on a midweek night!). It was quite stressful.

I went in with a list, knowing nothing was going to look good, the way I was feeling. Mostly stuck to the list although I had “something totally different” on the list and I just didn’t have it in me to really search for something different. I’m falling into kitchen malaise, I think, and need something to get me excited again. The kalimotxos have been great but somehow a cocktail’s not the same thing as some exotic fruit or veggie from somewhere I’ve never been, or some canned thing I’ve never tried.

Keeping up one’s living space is a pain in the neck, something I’m only recently kind of learning to do with regularity, thanks to lots of time at home, and goodness knows my living space has some unpleasant tasks unique to me. But is there any chore more annoying than bringing in the groceries? I hate it so much. It’s disheartening.

When I was living in the dorm, JB and I would hit the Manoa Safeway and spend ambitious amounts money on ambitious numbers of groceries. We’d carry everything down to the kitchen to stash our stuff in our assigned cabinets and our assigned fridges and then we’d go to Grace’s for dinner. Why is cooking the last thing anyone wants to do after bringing home fresh groceries? I think it has something to do with the pain-in-the-neck task of putting everything away.

I put the pantry stuff away and found weird places to keep the next week-and-a-half’s worth of Diet Pepsi, but left the produce on my counter and collapsed in the bed, not getting back up until after 4:30 in the morning. What am I doing to myself?

I put the produce away — even chopping the watercress into stir-fryable sizes and putting it in a zippered plastic bag.

I had breakfast kind of late, like not until 11:30 or so. I had half a can of corned beef hash in the fridge from before the weekend of decadence, so I fried that up with some eggs and had it on the hapa rice. I’m pretty sure I skipped lunch, but my brain is hazy about that time of day. I feel like I must have eaten something but can’t find any evidence of it.

I had dinner just now, a bowl of raisin bran.

Jennifer texted me a link to an article while I was at the supermarket. It talked about what you need to earn hourly in order to afford a two-bedroom apartment in Hawaii. Depressing.

Crush Girl and I traded more book talk, which was nice. Sharon and I did some work talk until I felt too tired to continue.

I didn’t go for a walk because of not feeling well.

I don’t know how I feel now, but I think I feel another crash coming, and I still need to brush my teeth.

Which I think I’ll do now. No time for proofreading. I’ll fix typos later. Reach out here if you want someone to connect with in this extended lockdown.

Last night after I wrote, I did go for a walk. I meant it to be short, just down to one of the bus stops down the hill and two or three blocks over so I could tie a few grocery bags full of recyclable bottles and cans to it. I don’t need the nickels but I need the exercise, so I leave the returnables for those people who collect them.

I had three bags full of ten to twelve cans and bottles each. Tied two of them to a trash can at the bus stop near Joey DeSa field, then was going to tie the third to the can at the bus stop in front of the Catholic church a block away. But there were suspicious-looking guys hanging out in front of a house where there are always suspicious-looking people hanging out, and this time they were going back and forth across the street, which was right where the bus stop was.

So I detoured and took my cans to a bus stop on Liliha, then decided I might as well walk to the 7-Eleven near Kawananakoa School and get a money order to pay the rent. But the ATM was out of order there so I walked to the other 7-Eleven, on Nuuanu and School. It’s a only a slightly shorter walk than what was my norm before my knee started killing me.

It ended up being 10,000 steps. I set out shortly before midnight, and got back close to 2:00. Sigh. I cooled off and wound down, then put myself to bed and was still wide awake at 4:00 and was still kind of awake at 6:00. Ugh.

It must be that a good walk takes me three hours to really wind down from. Which is insane. I’m not running a super marathon; I’m strolling through a neighborhood. Geez. I don’t know what to think or do. Because I was very tired and sleepy before the walk and then not at all for hours after.

Despite my two hours of sleep, I woke up Monday ready to go. Revised a draft that was supposed to have been done but came back for more changes. Finished the second of those stories that took too long. Did some background on my next story. Submitted a rough first draft of a proposal for the college of engineering. Emailed a couple of people to get approval on a story draft. I was productive as heck.

I read chapter one of Quiet and wrote some pretty extensive notes. I don’t want to have to read this yet again, so I’m trying to get as much out of it as I can. Watched the news. Took a nap. Read the news and ate. Moved some of my kitchen countertop appliances around to make better use of my space. Tackled the Monster.

I was feeling pretty weak by then, around midnight, so I really dilly-dallied through the task, taking more than two hours on something that usually takes just shy of ninety minutes. But I got it done, and after all these weeks of commitment, I’m beginning to see some big differences. Rather pleased.

I felt so good that I set up some space in my laundry room to do jigsaw puzzles. When the Monster is slain, I’ll rearrange my living room with a dedicated jigsaw puzzle table, but I felt I deserved a temporary space for it in the laundry. AJ sent me a gorgeous puzzle a couple of months ago and I need to show her my gratitude by actually working on it.

I didn’t work on the puzzle — separated the edges from the interior, then took a photo to send to AJ, and that was it. Because it’s past 4:00 in the morning and I need to get to bed.

Breakfast and lunch were the leftovers from L&L. The chicken katsu was unusually good. I made a large pot of hapa rice and had canned chili for dinner. Just still didn’t feel like actually preparing something.

I decided that for hapa rice, a 3 to 1 brown rice to white rice ratio works best. Equal parts is hardly noticeable as brown rice. Drank kalimotxos out of my huge beer mug. I still have a third of the bottle of shiraz but I’m out of cola, so that’ll be it until the weekend I think.

There was a lot of interaction Monday. AJ and I traded texts before I fell asleep to see if I was awake. She guessed wide awake at 3:00, which I was. Then much later I thanked her again for the puzzle and sent her a photo of the edge pieces separated out.

Called my parents during my lunch break. They seem okay. Not as upbeat as the last time I saw them. I told them about Bloody Wednesday and they reassured me if it ever comes to it, I always have them and their home to fall back on. I thanked them and said I know; I appreciate it.

The writing partner was super super amped about some revisions she made to her novel, so she wanted to talk on the phone. I was annoyed at having to make a second voice call in one day, but it turned out to be really nice to hear her voice, and we had a good, productive writers group session.

Jennifer and I traded a few texts about canned chili (this is what inspired my dinner) and her working in the office situation. I texted Crush Girl to tell her this story I saw on the news — I thought she’d think it was sweet. She did. Then I sent the same story to Ali in Boston, and she said she’d read the same story too.

Penny and I traded some book talk. That was nice. I like having friends who read. It makes me sad about Silent Book Club being on hold for the foreseeable future.

Didn’t go for a walk so I could take care of the Monster, but also to give my knee a break. If I don’t do laundry Wednesday morning, I’ll at least walk down the hill and back up Tuesday evening.

Don’t tell anyone I said this; I need to maintain my lone wolf cred. When I was out walking last night, I realized that it has taken four months of pretty steady solitary living for me to miss spending time in person with my friends, coworkers, and family. I miss human company. Live, in-person human company. With people I know, not just with the strangers in cafes and restaurants and movie theaters.

It feels a little weird. Like, I’ll experience something like this all the time for specific people — like hey, I haven’t hung out with so-and-so for a while. I wonder if she wants to get coffee. Or a general kind of hanging out — like man, I could really use some social female company. But missing being around people who know me, all of them at once? Very odd.

Four months. And it could be another four or eight before it ever happens. It feels weird, but also I’m trying to take advantage of the distancing. Undistracted by social stuff, I’m taking care of a lot of stuff I should have taken care of long ago, and that feels good.

Anyway, something to think about. I might have expected my threshold to be closer to six months, but here we are at four months and I’m missing getting a pizza with my writing partner or coffee with Grace or lunch with the coworkers or dinner with the folks. A passing mood? Or the beginning of a descent? Let’s find out!

And if you’re needing more connection, I’m happy to participate. Leave a note here and I’ll send you my contact info for DMs, IMs, and texts. Let’s message.

If I go for a walk right now, at 10:30 in the evening, and if I make it a quick one, I can satisfy my need to get some fresh air and some blood flowing, but I’ll be back at 12:30, I’ll need an hour to unwind, and then I’ll need an hour to write this. I can’t write right after a long walk. Or even a medium walk. And I’d like to get the work week started sanely, without being up until sunrise.

So I’m writing this now. Then I’ll do my getting-ready-for-tomorrow stuff, then go for a walk, maybe. Then come home, brush my teeth, and go to bed. I won’t be able to sleep right away, but maybe I won’t need the whole hour to cool down since I won’t be sitting down to do any thinking.

So yeah. Let’s see how this works.

I slept weirdly. Woke up feeling kind of rested, but Darth Vader wasn’t on my face. I took it off and went back to sleep and remember none of it. The machine tells me how much time the thing was in operation, and it said something like four hours and fifteen minutes. Not long before I actually awakened.

I didn’t get up and moving until 1:30. Ate the beef stew for breakfast. It was gross. Did the NYT crossword, texted Ali, read the news, did the LAT crossword. Somehow it was suddenly 8:00 in the evening and I had nothing else to show for it. I seriously don’t know where the day went.

I drove down the L&L and picked up a kalua pig combo with laulau. I have leftovers. I also picked up a chicken katsu for tomorrow. So I ate takeout for every meal beginning Friday and extending into Monday. Not proud, but strangely pleased.

I really wish I woke up early enough to have breakfast and then call my parents. I try not to call them too late in the afternoon. I’m going to have to take a morning break Monday and give them a call. Just need to see how they are.

While I had lunch/dinner, I re-read the intro to Susan Cain’s Quiet, the fourth time I’ve read the intro. Trying to give the book an honest, thoughtful, slow read, but I keep getting sidetracked. I also read the intro to Susan Frier’s Unfiltered: The Inside Story of Instagram, which I purchased a month before it was released and am only getting to now.

I’m pleased that I spent the time. I’d rather be reading a novel but I guess this is where my brain is right now, so I’m going to ride it. I’ve been following Frier on Twitter for some time. She’s a tech journalist who does really good work. And she’s rather fetching. Which I didn’t know when I followed her, I’ll have you know. I’ll admit it factored into my pre-ordering the book, though.

I didn’t listen to much music Sunday. A little bit of power metal as I was up and about. Nothing while I read. I’m spinning the Choir’s Bloodshot Eyes (2018) now, mostly because it stimulates my Sunday mood really well. Something wistful about this album that reminds me of my Sunday evenings when I was still teaching.

AJ texted me while I was typing yesterday’s entry, to see if I was asleep. She guessed wrong. I was awake. We chatted a little before I went to bed. Jennifer and I talked a teeny bit about the sourdough starter article she sent me. Silly shenanigans in the engineering group text. I sent Ali a couple of texts but she did the touch-respond to each, without actually texting me back. What’s the word for that? When someone ha-has your text message? Oh, I forgot she actually texted me when I was asleep — sent me a photo of a guy on 90-Day Fiance who goes everywhere carrying a cat. I responded with, “That’s me in six months.” Sylvia sent me a link to a recipe for rolled hoagies. It looks pretty involved, I said, but it looks delicious.

Feel a little yucky, physically, which I think I predicted sometime Saturday. At least right now, I regret nothing. I have to say the national news about COVID-19 is really, really bringing me down. I listened as usually on Sunday mornings to NBC’s Meet the Press via podcast and that made it worse. Then, unusually, I listened to ABC’s This Week with George Stephanopolous and that made it worse. We gotta get this guy out of the White House.

I’ve been staring at a blinking cursur for ten minutes, which means it’s time to just go. So let’s go. It’s three minutes to eleven, and I’m putting the odds of my taking a walk before bed tonight at something like 1.5 to 1 in favor.

Reach out if you need some connection. I can’t say I’ll be the cheeriest company, but I’ll be company. Leave a message in this space.

Here’s to a good week.

Saturday. Man it felt good.

I did go to sleep at around 9:30 Friday night. The first two hours were that drooling, unintentional sleep, without the Darth Vader mask. The next three and a half were the peaceful, proper sleep of a normal human being with a hose coming out of his face and air being pushed in by a machine. Then the next couple of hours were a weird mix of rest and unrest. Peaceful unrest but still not really sleep.

I typed up yesterday’s journal then around eight, I went to the supermarket.

I’d never heard of a kalimotxo until I saw someone drinking one on IG. Read a few articles in the NY Times and a few other cool food-and-drink publications and I was sold. So yeah. 8:00 in the morning at the supermarket for cheap wine and Hawaii-made cola. The kind sweetened with cane sugar and not high-fructose corn syrup.

It’s basically cheap red wine and cola in equal amounts. On ice. It sounds gross but it’s terrific. Like everything a sangria or spritzer wants to be but isn’t. That cola flavor makes such a difference.

Before heading home, I stopped at a breakfast spot in the hood. Not Pancakes and Waffles, but Egghead Cafe. I picked up a veggie omelette (they have two on the menu) and some peanut butter French toast, which was basically a peanut butter sandwich dipped in French toast batter and fried. It was rather delicious. The omelette was amazing. Fried tofu, shiitake mushrooms, onion, garlic, spinach, Swiss cheese, miso, and a sweet sesame sauce. I thought the shiitake-Swiss combination was going to make the meal, but it was the fried tofu, which was kind of stiff and chewy, almost like a shiitake before it’s all the way rehydrated. Gave the whole thing a great, meaty feeling.

That was breakfast and lunch. I pretty much sipped on kalimotxos from lunch time to right now (it’s just past six in the morning), which isn’t as bad as it sounds. I didn’t finish the whole bottle of the $6 cab and only got through two cans of the cola.

For dinner, I drove to Liliha Bakery and ordered two entrees. I had the meatloaf for dinner. I’ll have the beef stew Sunday for either breakfast or lunch.

Two days in a row of takeout for all three meals. I’m not disgusted with myself yet, but I’ll get there sometimes Sunday for sure.

Gluttony, sloth. Sloth, gluttony.

As I’ve mentioned a few times, I haven’t done any reading since the lockdown began. I made myself do it today, though. Finished the graphic novel I posted a review of a few hours ago. Probably the highlight of my day, besides just having a break from all the work sadness.

All day I had my power metal playlist spinning in the background. Edenbridge. Kamelot. Two bands I think would make my own top 25 albums list for the genre. Others I’d kind of forgotten about, like Edguy and MasterPlan.

Lots of texting Saturday. I responded to Jennifer’s sourdough text and she said she’d like to hear how anything comes out if I give something from the article a try. Crush Girl and I talked about her plans for the weekend. Actually, we conversed about some good stuff, like the breakfast places I’ve been trying lately in my hood. And a couple of restaurants she asked me about because she might check one out soon.

Penny heard about Bloody Wednesday from one of her friends who’s married to one of the guys who didn’t make it. Ugh. She wanted to know if I was still employed. There was some talk in the engineering firm group text about a possible Zoom to watch one of the kids have a birthday cake. I remained silent on that one.

The best was Ali. She was very talkative, and we shared some stuff we almost never got to talk about while we worked together. It was therapeutic. We talked books, too. I was really worried distance was going to separate our friendship, and I’m still a little worried about that, but so far it’s pretty good. Not like seeing each other every day good, but better than I might have hoped. I think I need her more than she needs me, so I’ve been a little sensitive about this.

I didn’t go for a walk. I ate like a madman and drank kalimotxos and read a graphic novel and watched a couple of episodes of Orange is the New Black and made a small chores list for Sunday. I’m expecting to do more of the same Sunday, except for adding the chores, possibly to include the Monster. And I have a shiraz instead of a cab.

So, lots of time for texting and DMing if you need it. Hit me up.

Time for bed. God bless us and make us good boys and girls. Amen.

I was a little more productive Friday than I thought I’d be, but less productive than I should have been. I’m not trying to use Bloody Wednesday as an excuse for working slowly or half-heartedly, but it’s a factor for sure. The storytelling part of my brain wasn’t working. I’d have welcomed a proposal, something more businesslike. I had a few quick-turnaround things (can you read this terrible sentence and tell me how to fix it? that kind of thing). That second story I’ve almost completed a first draft of remains in this state.

What my brain lacked in enthusiasm my appetite more than made up for. Gluttony and sloth, part 2. I drove down to Rainbows, which is five minutes away, and picked up a shoyu chicken plate, a boneless chicken plate, and a side of chili tater tots. The plan: eat that all day. It’s exactly what I did. Together, these were my breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I neither fired up the Instant Pot, nor opened the microwave oven door, nor took a lid off any food storage container.

It was comforting and disgusting, sensory and guilt-inducing. It would have been just about perfect if midway through the day it wasn’t getting a little old. I didn’t even touch the mac salad — I keep forgetting how absolutely terrible Rainbows mac salad is. It’s freaking gross. I don’t know what that stuff is they put in it, but it’s not mayo, and the macaroni is always cooked to within a second of disintegration. Bleah.

Listened to music most of the day, since a lot of the good podcasts took the week off. Friday is new music release day, but there was nothing to get excited about on the metal list. I jotted down a few things to check out later; there just wasn’t something that needed listening to right away. So I returned to the Loudwire power metal list and spun Gamma Ray’s Land of the Free (1988). Number four on the list but number twelve in your heart. Or thereabouts.

I’ve already rhapsodized about Helloween, so a quick thought on Gamma Ray. If you listen to power metal, you already know that Kai Hansen founded Helloween and turned it into the most influential power metal band ever, but he left the group in its early days of glory and founded Gamma Ray. So the two bands are sorta joined, the way Metallica and Megadeth are because of Dave Mustaine.

It’s a good album although occasionally very cheesy, as Gamma Ray is wont to be. Note to up-and-coming metal bands: don’t write songs about metal itself. And don’t write songs with “heavy metal” in the title.

In the evening before bed, I listened to Sonata Arctica’s Winterheart’s Guild (2003), number eleven on the Loudwire list. I’ve actually owned the CD since 2003, but I wasn’t sure where it was so I spun it three times on Spotify. It was exactly as I remembered it, and it has aged well. Happy to know the one Sonata Arctica album I own is the one to own, according to some.

I was so exhausted I went to bed at 9:30. Tried to read for a while but my body wouldn’t let me.

AJ in SD has this new game she enjoys. She guesses whether I’m awake or asleep in the wee hours, then texts me just to see. It’s pretty funny. Friday she texted at 6 a.m. and yes, I was still up. Brushing my teeth to get ready for bed after wasting all that time Thursday night (Friday morning, that is) looking for potato chips.

Sharon and I did some work talk via text. We had a little conversation about the aloha email. You know, the one you send on your last day at the office.

Ali was in one of her chatty text message moods, and it was a blessing. We did all kinds of book talking, plus some stuff about Bloody Wednesday (she used to work with us, remember).

Jennifer texted me a link to an article about sourdough starter. I didn’t read it yet. That might have been Wednesday, now that I think about it.

I didn’t go for a walk. Remember, gluttony and sloth. And crossword puzzles. My post-Bloody-Wednesday survival kit.

Text me if you need to connect. I’m down for it if you can handle long breaks between responses for the next few days. Leave a note her and I’ll send you my contact info.

Thursday was surreal. We all woke up to a different company. You could feel it, even though we’re all working far apart from each other. Texts simply asked, “How are you doing?” And it wasn’t smalltalk. It was how are you doing after Bloody Wednesday?

The answer most of the time: not good. My usual reply was, “About as you’d expect.”

I’m not proud of the way I’ve dealt with it, a combination of gluttony, sloth, and bleary-eyed crossword puzzles.

Thursday I had the laundry all to myself the entire time. It was nice. I stopped at the beach on the way home. There were leaves and seed pods in the water, not enough to freak me out and chase me from the ocean, but noticeably more than you see on a typical day. We’ve had some rain. Leaves at this beach are not a good sign.

I still went a bit harder and a little longer than I planned. It felt good, and I’m not showing any signs of illness, so I think the gamble paid off.

For breakfast, I stopped at Pancakes and Waffles. It’s not even my favorite breakfast spot in town; it’s just really conveniently located on my way home. I had an omelet, the house special, which I won’t describe because it’s pretty indulgent. I got the side of white rice (instead of toast, home fries, or fried rice), and then an extra side of home fries. I did say something about gluttony, right?

I didn’t touch the home fries until lunch, though. So that was lunch. A more than sensible, reasonable lunch.

For dinner, I made the instant ramen thing again, with a whole block of tofu, half a bag of bean sprouts, and a head of baby bok choi. I could tell the tofu didn’t have much time left, so I consumed the whole thing. It was a lot of food, but I’ll take some comfort in knowing the bulk of it was veggie or veggie-like.

There were a small number of peanut butter Oreos for a snack. Three? Four? Around there.

I went to the local stripmall for some boba around 8:30 and it freaked me out. There were as many people there, some apparently just hanging out, as on a typical summer evening. I was super stressed the whole time. To add disapointment to stress, the boba itself was super mushy. My first boba in a month, too. Bleah.

There was almost as much texting and IMing for work as the day before. We’re all processing. I don’t think there was any personal messaging for me — just work stuff. It seemed fitting.

I should have been in bed early, but I wasted hours looking up regional potato chip companies and seeing if anyone would ship to Hawaii for a reasonable price. Don’t ask me why. I stopped myself after couple of hours but before I was satisfied.

I also watched three episodes of Orange is the New Black, season four. Some incredible, intense acting. Also some really good laugh-aloud moments. The despicable main character is broken. She understands (again) how lousy a person she is. I’m still annoyed at her idiotic behavior, but I’m opening up a little for her. There were a few moments of grace.

I don’t have much else to say. It was a crappy day and I think all things considered, I got through it mostly unscathed.

Connect. Reach out. Leave me a note here and we’ll work something out. The end.

I’m going to try to make this a quick one, so please interrupt me if I take off on a weird tangent about some silly thing I saw on TV or some music I streamed.

It’s 3:20 and if I can get to bed by 4, I’ll be super happy.

I pretty much just worked all day. Not in the grinding-for-eighteen-hours way, as I often do on proposals, but in the work-a-little-take-a-break way I sometimes do more narrative stories.

I try not to let myself fall into formulaic writing, despite the way so much of what I write is similar in nature and theme. I’m kind of desperate not to keep writing the same story with different values for variables, and I’m not just talking about structure like the five-paragraph essay form. I’m talking about deeper level thinking as it translates into storytelling, something I don’t have any formal education in but which I am certain separates good writing from very good writing.

If I’m going to write the five-paragraph essay, for example, I don’t want the five paragraphs always to be intro-body-body-body-conclusion. There are ways of expositing the same material without a thesis statement followed by three points and a why-should-you-care statement to wrap it up.

Because I don’t have the formal schooling, I don’t have the language for dissecting my thinking, and without the language it’s difficult to think about or analyze. I’m keenly aware of this, but I’m determined to force myself through it over time — I’ve been forcing myself through it since I took this job — so I have a better understanding of story and my role in telling it.

I had this amazing professor in an advanced expository, 400-level composition course at UH Hilo. She focused all semester on metaphor, in a way that blew my too-immature mind. I just wasn’t ready for most of it, but I’m so glad I did the reading and took notes and tried to contribute to the discussion. I’ve called on these things as I’ve considered the x-ray type stuff in my analysis. Although I know there’s more to it, I’m grateful to have it as a handhold.

Anyway, these are things I’m sure my supervisor doesn’t want to hear. Because they slow my writing down like one gigantic speedbump, as they did today. My storytelling machinery is a little rusty too, which didn’t help.

I got one story drafted and another aaaaaaaalmost drafted. I need one more transition and then a couple of good paragraphs to close, but my eyes and brain hurt, so I submitted them for a quick review.

Half an hour ago.

I’m grateful also to have a job allowing me to take a whole day sometimes to do this kind of writing and thinking, and a supervisor who lets me do it once in a while.

So the whole day was kind of a work day for me, and it’s okay. I didn’t take a walk or watch any TV besides the news. I went from bed to the desk to the bathroom to the kitchen to the desk to the bed in an endless cycle that got me through the nearly two drafts.

I’m tired.

For breakfast I had instant ramen with half a bag of bean sprouts, half a block of firm tofu, and one head of baby bok choi. It was really more veggies than noodles, but that’s how I like it lately. I needed something simple but not instant, you know? Not something to throw in the microwave. Something to actually put together. Just not anything fancy.

I’m likely to have the same thing either for breakfast or lunch tomorrow. Gotta use the rest of the ingredients.

It reminds me of one of my favorite meals in the year-and-a-quarter when I was underemployed, before I took the job at the foundation. Good topic for tomorrow.

Lunch was a bowl of raisin bran. I didn’t want to mess up my writing flow, so I needed something quick and yummy.

Dinner was just laziness. Three hot dogs with ketchup, mustard, and sauerkraut. Didn’t need that third one, dang it.

I had three peanut butter Oreos for a snack. I don’t remember when but I know I had them.

Loudwire published a list of its 25 best power metal albums of all time. It’s a good list, some of which I’d have predicted and some of which I agree with. That’s going to be a fun list to make, when I have some time to think about it.

I’m going to spend the rest of the week listening to stuff on the list I’m not familiar with. Tonight I spun an album called A Flame to the Ground Beneath by Lost Horizon (2003). It was one of the few bands on the list I’ve never heard or heard of, but its position at number seven seems well considered. Good album.

The 2002-2003 school year is a key year for me in my music fanaticism. It’s when I discovered power metal and symphonic metal, the year I made my first purchases in this area, including the number five album on the list, Symphony X’s The Odyssey (2002), which I might put at number one or two on my own list.

It was my first year teaching at Assets, too, so the music and the beginning of this second leg of my teaching career are kind of woven.

I got an early text from Jenny about an HBA alumni online event, an interview with my classmate Karen, who’s a state judge. I didn’t get to watch the stream since I was working, but if it’s still viewable I’ll watch it later this week for sure.

Crush Girl and I talked a little about the new COVID-19 cases — a nearly unbelievable 41! Seriously, I can’t believe it. I thought it was a typo. Oh, she also looked at the first two episodes of Casual, which made me feel good. I’m evangelizing Jason Reitman.

Sharon and I texted about a local TV reporter we’ve been talking about and a little about this all-staff Zoom meeting we have tomorrow. Ugh. I don’t want to think about it. It’s not until 4:00, too, so I have all day to dread it. It’s not going to be a fun day.

Suzanne sent the engineering group text a request for a photo of Eddie. I had no idea who Eddie was so I sent a photo of Edward Van Halen, the best Eddie I can think of. Turns out Cindy’s cat is named Eddie and that’s who Suzanne was talking about. Then Julie sent a photo of herself breastfeeding one of her kids. Great.

That was it. Uneventful but productive Tuesday, even if the productivity was extremely inefficient. I’m feeling normal for some reason, and I may celebrate Wednesday with takeout lunch from somewhere.

As you can see, I’ve got bandwidth for more texting, IMing, or DMing. Hit me up in this space and I’ll send you my contact info, if you need someone to connect with. I promise not to send you breastfeeding photos, but you may get 80s guitar slinger photos.