Author: scrivener

I’m actually writing this half an hour past midnight, the earliest I’ve done it in quite a while.

Thursday was a state holiday: King Kamehameha Day. It’s one of those rare holidays we don’t move to the nearest Monday or Friday because of the honoree’s stature. It’s an important day for a lot of people, but it’s never been more than a day off to me (and when I was teaching, it wasn’t even that, since I’d be on summer vacation) — I have little or no connection to Kamehameha, and I’m not really sure I’m down with honoring military leaders this way. They did great things, but they did them violently, this one especially violently.

I was happy for the day off, though, after kind of the rough start to the week I’d been having. I love a mid-week holiday, too: you get two Fridays, and Friday is one of the best days. I prefer it to a three-day weekend, really, and every so often when I need a day off from work, I almost always have it on a Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday. They’re better days for being out and about, for one thing (under normal circumstances), since most people don’t take those days off. But I also like the pressure I feel to get stuff done before the day off, and then when I have my usual Friday, I have the pressure again. Friday is often my most productive days of the week, since I hate dragging stuff into the weekend if I can avoid it.

I woke up earlier than I wanted, like around 8:30, after getting to sleep around 5:30. I lazed about for 90 minutes and then had breakfast: a couple of hot dogs with ketchup, mustard, and sauerkraut. Did the Thursday NYT crossword.

(this next paragraph contains spoilers for the Thursday NYT crossword puzzle; skip to the one after if you care)

Thursday is the day you’re most likely to see something playful or experimental, and this week’s puzzle was that. Two of the across answers actually held two answers each, so 20 Across, five letters, held the answers FRANK and ELVIS, while 22 across held the answers SINATRA and PRESLEY. You were supposed to write them one atop the other, so the answers coming down, crossing these multiple across answers, would use both letters. 1 Down, crossing the F in FRANK and the E in ELVIS, offered five squares for the clue “Blunders.” So despite five squares, the correct fill-in is GAFFES, the second F making FRANK going across and the E making ELVIS. Pretty cool idea. It took me 31 minutes to complete, or 11 minutes longer than my Thursday average.

There’s more to it, but I shan’t bore you with details. If you’re in an area where the local paper runs the NYT crossword, it’ll show up six Thursdays from now, or July 23.

The time seemed right for the anticipated nap, so I went back to bed. I got up at about 1:30, did a few work emails, read the news, listened to podcasts, and mostly goofed around on my phone. There was a lot going on on Twitter.

At five, I settled in to watch the local and national news broadcasts. It’s weird seeing the regular midweek news on a holiday. It may have been a slow day around these parts, but it was a normal day everywhere else.

I snacked on tortilla chips and fresh salsa. I may have had a few more than my usual “snack,” something I don’t feel very good about. Yet if I overindulged, it honestly wasn’t by much. It just felt like it for some reason.

I did a few chores, then laid down on the bed to catch up on some text messages. And woke up hours later. Yikes. Felt a little lousy, but forced myself up to make lunch-dinner. I had a bunch of leftover gyoza filling (ground chicken, green onions, cabbage, ginger, garlic, shiitake mushrooms, shoyu, sake, and sesame oil), so I cooked it in a pot with choy sum and kim chi, and had it on some leftover brown rice.

It was pretty darn delicious. I really wish I’d made some fresh rice for it. I’m now out of leftover rice so I’ll make some Friday to go with tonight’s leftovers. I may indulge and just have white rice.

I listened to the new Michael Franti album as I cooked, and by the time I dug in, I was feeling back to myself again. The combination of feelgood music, good food, and cooking something new was a good fix, although I may not have been in too much need of fixing. Something was a little off; I’m hoping it was a fluke.

I texted Ali in Boston to say happy Kamehameha Day and send her a photo of a blanket that looks like instant Korean ramen. It was pretty funny. She responded and I responded and that was it. She’s alternately loquacious and non-verbose, so it’s about what I expected. Plus she didn’t have a holiday.

Crush Girl texted me to tell me where to get a certain ingredient we’d talked about the night before. One of those ingredients they don’t sell at the Kalihi Times Supermarket, which still doesn’t carry oat milk, and which no longer carries Best Foods ketchup. I may need to start shopping elsewhere. We talked a little about our days, and that was it.

The ducks conversation in the engineering ladies’ group text continues.

My friend Julie, one of the participants in the group text, recently moved to Rhode Island (it’s a military thing), so I sent her the IG profile of this poke spot in Providence I’ve been following. I have no connection to it whatsoever, but the proprietors are a couple of rather fetching Asian and Hawaiian women from California and from Rhode Island, and their IG posts are punny, and they are working their butts off to make this a successful business. It’s nice to observe. Anyway Julie loves poke, so I told her in an IG DM to check it out and let me know how it is. She said she’s totally going to do it.

I’m mainly writing this now instead of in the wee hours because I’m hoping to turn in a little earlier, ‘though not too much earlier. I received season six of Silicon Valley, the final season, on DVD in the mail early this week and I think I’ll watch an episode or two before I turn in. Orange is the New Black season four will have to wait.

I still have that pineapple juice from the canned pineapple the other day. This seems like a good time to find some alcohol to mix it with.

My knee still aches so I didn’t go for a walk. I mean sometimes it aches while I’m lying still. This is nearly getting worrisome.

Yay tomorrow is Friday. I’ll spend the early part of the day working on another proposal for the engineering college, this one quite a bit bigger than the last few. If I can get a draft off before the end of the day, I can finally work on these donor stories that have been sitting idle for more than a month. Yeesh.

If you’re not connecting enough with others, as I’ve been lucky enough to do with my nice friends, I hope you’ll reach out. I think it’s the thing that keeps us from going crazy. Happy Friday.

Here’s a quick story about the development writers’ conference I attended two Novembers ago. I can’t remember the name of the breakout I was in, but I was in it for the whole three days, something like four sessions together. It’s going to sound like I’m telling it to boast about something, but I’m not. If it were that, I ‘d have told it long ago.

I liked the concept. The seminar leaders gave us real-world case studies, then asked us to write something. They gave us time to write, right there in the meeting room during our session, which was far preferable to making us do homework. We submitted our work, then we were on our own, so if we finished early, we could just leave.

I have to say the assignments were challenging. Like, super challenging. They even gave us more info than we needed, so we had to sort through it and decide what we needed, or what we were going to use. It didn’t help that I was new to this kind of writing and didn’t even know what they were asking us to write. I’ve been at this three and a half years now, and I’m still learning the jargon.

At the first session, the leaders gave us our assignments, with not a very long deadline: about 90 minutes. They reminded us they’d be right there to answer any questions but not to help directly, since they wanted to get a decent assessment of where we were as writers.

Everyone got right to work. Typing away like crazy. I looked around and didn’t see anyone just sitting there, eyes wandering, eyes closed, skimming Twitter. I thought to myself, “Don’t these people know how to write?”

There was a Starbucks in the lobby of the hotel. I went over and got a pumpkin spice latte. They taste better in Boston, I tell you.

There were photos of famous people in the lobby. I don’t know why. One of them was this excellent, very cool photo of Elvis Costello. The lobby bar, sunken into the floor in very middle of the large space and super classy-looking, was full of other conference attendees who apparently got out of their sessions early or were just not going to them. I’ve heard this has been known to happen.

I walked around outside for a little while. To a guy who’s spent most of his life in Hawaii, just stepping into the cold is pretty exciting. I didn’t even think about the assignment until forty minutes or so into the assigned time.

It was a bit of a puzzle. A letter to a donor who was on the fence about a large donation. It was to name a student activities space, only he wasn’t super interested in his family’s name on the wall. What he really cared about was setting an example for his kids, so they would know that while they were financially blessed, they had a responsibility to share their money with others in meaningful ways.

I latched onto this aspect. There was a lot more info, but all I had to do was sway this gentleman toward making the gift. I thought about his not caring about the name on the building, but his kids’ recognition of giving, as an example to them.

I started (still composing in my head) with something like, “Thousands of students every year will use this space and never know the part you played. But your children will know: they’ll know where your name would be on the building , and they’ll know why it’s not there. They’ll know their father cared more about giving than about recognition…”

I got back to the meeting room about half an hour from the deadline. Everyone was still tapping away. When I finally got started, it just came right out of me. I wrote the letter in about fifteen minutes, then spent another ten making it sound pretty. I submitted it on a jump drive, by now about half the participants still working.

The next morning, my letter was on a Powerpoint slide as the good example. The leaders had made a few changes — excellent changes, I have to say — and broke down for the group what they liked (and what they didn’t) about the letter. Then they asked aloud if the writer was okay with their sharing who did it.

I was tempted to stay silent, but what the heck? I said quietly, “It’s fine.” And they said my name and the name of the university, and people around me clapped. It was nice. It felt good to be acknowledged by other writers, especially since at the time I was the one person in my company who wrote the stuff I write, so it’s a little lonely sometimes.

I was glad I volunteered authorship of the work, because it led to some really nice conversations over the next couple of days, and I got invited into conversations, and to a few dinners, and a few weeks later, someone I met there invited me to apply for a writer position at UC Davis.

Everyone writes differently, and you can scoff if you want to, but wandering around the hotel lobby with a hot latte in my hands and thinking about the time I saw Elvis Costello in concert with the Honolulu Symphony Orchestra on consecutive nights was part of the writing.

It doesn’t always work like this, but very often it does: think about something else. Do something else. At a critical moment, usually dictated by a deadline, I’m embarassed to say, I sit down and it comes out.

This is all to say that although I got right to work this morning determined to focus, it didn’t quite play out this way. I had an afternoon phone call, during which I spoke with my boss about this cancer center outline. This followed Tuesday’s Zoom meeting with the whole department during which I admitted I was embarassed by this position I’d found myself in with this project: taking so long that now I had to make it really good to justify the delay.

Everyone was understanding, reassuring, and encouraging. Including the boss.

I was a little stuck on one last piece I wanted to flesh out. Then someone sent me a draft of that West Oahu proposal I was disapointed not to work on, asking me for some suggestions. I quickly lasered in on this, very quickly making a few changes, then emailing it back.

When I switched back to the cancer center thing, it was right there. I typed away for ten minutes and it was ready to share.

It’s not great. It’s going to be savaged by the many hands who have to approve it. But it was going to be savaged anyway, in whatever condition it was in, because collaborative writing works this way. It’ll work as starting point, and that’s all they asked me to give them more than a week ago.

Argh.

Anyway, it feels good to finally have submitted it.

Last night during the walk, I picked up a loco moco for a late dinner. I mentioned this. I didn’t mention that I also stopped at Kamehameha Bakery (which opens at 2 in the morning, and I was in the area) and picked up a couple of doughnuts. That was Wednesday’s breakfast.

Terrible, I know.

I didn’t really have lunch, ‘though I may have had some bread pudding as a snack. Also picked up from the stupid bakery. I hate that bakery.

When my workday ended, I just went to bed. Slept from like 7 until 10:30 in the evening. Then got up and made that gyoza I prepped Monday night. It came out great, if without a restaurant-quality photogenicness. It was fun. And I’m pleased with the effort.

I goofed off on my phone and listened to podcasts, and now it’s 4:33 a.m. and I’m about to attempt sleep after what I will call a good day.

No, I did not go for a walk. Ugh. My feet and knee are still aching from yesterday’s walk. The next time I go, I’m going to wear the old shoes and see if that makes a difference.

Sylvia and I switched between texts and work Skype to talk about her book club and a bunch of other stuff.

Crush Girl texted me to ask what I think of the J. K. Rowling stuff. I expressed what I thought was a pretty good opinion, but then in our conversation I realized I didn’t know what led to the writer’s sharing these opinions anyway, and that’s the stuff that Crush Girl was really asking about. I still don’t know — I only read one article about the stituation, so I’ll find one more Thursday and get the background.

The group text with the engineering firm ladies was interesting. We talked about ducks, mostly. Suzanne has ducks in her yard and one of them might be injured. I mostly just participated passively but it was a funny series of messages.

I reached out to Ali in Boston but didn’t hear back.

I’m feeling more at peace right now than I’ve felt in several days, perhaps a couple of weeks. It’s an unusual feeling. I’m going to ride it for as long as I can. Which, based on history, could be weeks or minutes.

I’m considering two options for Thursday, which is a state holiday in Hawaii. Will wake up in a few hours and decide then.

Which means I have a lot of time if you’re looking for connection. Reach out. I’m here for it.

I have to think of a better word for that weird emotional space where I take to bed seeking non-feeling. Or something — I’m still trying to figure out what it is. I’ve been calling it the numbness, but that’s not quite it. Maybe I should just keep calling it what I always have. Just the darkness, even though it’s different from that other emotional yuckiness, the one that feels terrible.

Anyway. I went there for pretty much all of Tuesday evening. Around 10:00 I said aloud, I should really make myself go for a walk. At 12:30 I was still in bed, still just lying there staring at my phone.

I forced myself up, and finally out the door at almost 1:30. After about half an hour I was feeling normal again. I went 14,000 steps in mostly a very quiet night.

I did make it to the beach after the laundry Tuesday morning. It was nice, but there were quite a few more swimmers out there than usual.

I considered stopping for breakfast somewhere, but it was only a couple of hours after the Big Mac dinner, and I really wasn’t hungry. Got home, cleaned up a little, and unwound before going to bed.

Breakfast was a couple of hot dogs with mustard, ketchup, and sauerkraut. I didn’t exactly have lunch, but I snacked on a little bit of potato salad before retreating again to bed, as I’ve said. I picked up dinner near the end of my walk: a loco moco.

Crush Girl texted me to see how it was going. We both shared that we weren’t having the best day, and talked about how nearly half the U.S states are seeing their highest rates of new cases. This is not good. But it was nice to be reached out to. Encouraging.

Sylvia texted to say she’s joined a book club, and the first selection is Where the Crawdads Sing. Pretty great. And a popular book club choice.

AJ thanked me for the feedback on her book review, which was of a travel-cookbook.

Didn’t get to my gyoza Tuesday. I’ll do it Wednesday.

Wednesday could be tough at work, but I’m determined to get something turned in, so I’m looking forward to it. Thursday’s a holiday in Hawaii, and I’d like to go into it feeling good about my work this week.

I’m hanging in. Hope you are too. And I hope you’ll reach out if you’re not connecting enough.

I listened to a lot of podcasts and a lot of music. That’s most of my Sunday. Didn’t even nap much, as is my predilection for Sundays. Woke up to the sound of text alerts, which is unusual. I get texts in my sleep every night, but they almost never wake me. It was still a few hours before my alarm, so I ignored the phone, but then realized I was pretty much awake.

So I got up. Ate a couple of hot dogs with sauerkraut, mustard, and ketchup for breakfast. Did the Sunday NTY crossword in nineteen minutes. It was challenging but I worked it out, including the wicked clue “entrance” for the answer “BEWITCH.” Of course it doesn’t make any sense until you read “entrance” with a different prounciation. Yeah, that was the last hurdle to my finishing the puzzle.

Read the news. On weekdays, I try to read mostly the news and just a couple of pieces of commentary or analysis. It’s my way of sticking to facts and trying to make judgments on my own. Spend too much time immersed in commentary and you start to mix it up with the news, as viewers of that one cable news channel seem to do every day.

Sundays I read a little more commentary and analysis. It’s because Sunday’s the slowest news day. Since I listen pretty faithfully to the podcast release of Meet the Press, the day usually starts with a bit of commentary anyway.

I couldn’t really get to the end of any one piece, neither news nor commentary nor analysis. Tried to listen to the Obamas’ graduation speeches on YouTube, but I couldn’t sit through those either. Just wasn’t in the mood, really. It’s been a rough couple of weeks.

I goofed off a little on the web, then took a short nap. Actually set an alarm so I wouldn’t be up too late Sunday night.

For lunch I made another dish of spaghetti, so as not to let my marinara sit in the fridge forever. Also because I really like it. But yeah, that stuff doesn’t keep as well as you might think. I did a few housekeeping tasks, played around with my phone, and ate the rest of the spaghetti for dinner. I know. Terrible.

I hit the grocery store even though I just went last weekend. I needed more Diet Pepsi and took the moment to get a few other things. Mostly stuff to mess around with in the kitchen.

Like this mug pie I made. Well, mug apple crisp, really. I messed it up, mismeasuring ingredients two or three times, and there aren’t but six ingredients or so. It was a comedy of errors. But you know, I’ve enough experience with pie-baking to know I didn’t ruin the dish. You can pretty much make up how much butter, sugar, and cinnamon you want in your apple filling and it’ll come out tasty. It might be a little wet or too sweet, but it won’t be inedible.

So I proceeded despite my errors. The result was edible but not great. Good thing I bought two apples: I get to try again later, probably Tuesday night.

I saw the footage of the protest march in Honolulu Saturday. I’m not calling anyone an exaggerator, but it doesn’t look like 10,000 people to me. It looks like 5000 or so, which also might be pushing it, although I know even experts will tell you it’s super super difficult to estimate crowd size.

Not that it matters. It was a lot of people; the video makes this clear.

I didn’t go for a walk, which was kind of a lame decision. I won’t get to go Monday night either, probably, unless I’m really on top of my work and get enough done early enough to go. I very nearly went in the late afternoon, while the sun was still illuminating a lovely Honolulu day. I felt it calling; I should have answered.

Feeling a little moody, but I think it’s the usual Sunday night, end-of-weekend moodiness, which is almost reassuring in its melancholy. It’s only quarter to three, too, so if I hustle, I can shave, brush my teeth, and make overnight oats, and slide into bed by 3:30. That would be nice.

So the daily text/dm/im rundown. AJ and I traded a few short texts about, um, something I can’t discuss here. But also about her book review, and about why she changes her IG bio so often. She says, “I’m not sure. I’m a different person every day?” I laughed.

JB answered my questions about God but I thought he played coy, or evasive, or something. And called him on it. He hasn’t responded yet.

Ryan is already thinking about the next issue of Hawaii Stories, which I love. I said we should debrief later this week — I’m still enjoying some of the buzz from yesterday, and hope to spread it around a little. Get these writers some eyeballs on their work.

Crush Girl and I traded a very few texts about the second wave of this disease. It’s coming. Florida has five straight days of 1000 new cases. Hello.

That’s about it. Hope your week is great and filled with meaningful interaction. If it isn’t, please reach out. We may all be emerging from our caves, but I’ve a feeling many of us will be scurrying right back into them before long. So you may as well reach out and connect with someone.

Hello sunrise, my old friend.

I am once again greeting the dawn, in passing. I’m heading one way as the day is headed the other.

My big Saturday thing was launching the first issue of Hawaii Stories with Ryan. Ryan asked me to be the guest editor for the first issue and I said sure. It’s much later in the calendar than either of us expected and it’s entirely my fault, but here it is. I’m proud of it. I’m proud of what it is, too: an inclusive, visible space where local writers can have their work seen. Maybe it’s just a collaborative blog. I think it’s something more.

I know five of the thirteen writers personally, but this was my first time working with any of them as writers. This was the most valuable part for me: hearing these voices, seeing where they differ, and noting where they are similar. One commonality I’m concerned about is wordiness. In casual writing, wordiness is fine, but in formal writing I believe quite firmly in keeping it sleek.

Sentences can be long, sure, but creating stories whose music is economical should be the goal — only once you get the sense of your own music should you add your signature flourishes, and you should know your own voice well enough to add them artistically. Are you an “Indeed” transitioner? Fine. But use it with purpose, placing it right where you want it. If you’ve got it twice in any one piece shorter than a novella, you aren’t using it purposely.

On one hand, I’m disappointed that more writers I encounter don’t pay attention to this — if they were piano players they wouldn’t throw unneeded notes wherever they wanted in Moonlight Sonata. On the other, because I do pay close attention and because I edit a lot of other people’s writing, I get to do it for a living, as long as a living involves neither a house of my own nor a new car. So I’m grateful there’s a need for what I can do.

One of the writers in this issue is very cognizant of the flow of his language. I made several suggestions for him, but they had little to do with style and more to do with mechanics. Check out his “Bubonic Beer Run” story and you’ll see what I mean. Good sense of detail and a very musical flow. Of course, he’s a performing musician so he gets it, but I know a lot of performing musicians who don’t apply their musical sense to their writing.

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I got out of bed around 1:30. Did the Saturday NYT crossword — it killed me, ending my latest streak at something like 28 days. It was just one bad square, but it was one idiotic square for me. Soon as I saw the bad square, I knew where I messed up.

I read the news as I ate breakfast (two hot dogs with mustard, ketchup, and sauerkraut. I wasn’t very hungry.

I took a nap at around 6. Did a few household tasks and made lunch: steamed Brussels sprouts with a balsamic vinegar glaze. It was incredibly easy, this first time doing the vinegar thing with the sprouts. I’ll add a lot more vinegar next time. And I have to say that substituting dried garlic flakes for fresh chopped garlic was kind of a genius move. Genius born of laziness, but still genius. It had an entirely different flavor but the aroma was terrific and I really liked the toasted garlic taste.

Over lunch I watched the 2003 made-for-TV The Music Man with Matthew Broderick and Kristin Chenoweth. I’ll review it later — wanna give it one more screening first. Chenoweth, though, is amazing. She sings a song and she makes you want to be the man who deserves to have the song sung for him. I just want her to look at me while she sings.

I emailed all the Hawaii Stories writers to thank them again, then took a short walk. I didn’t get out the door until past 2 in the morning. Insane. I wanted to mail a Netflix DVD back, so I walked it down to the dropbox at the mall and I was feeling a little snacky. Instead of going south or east to my usual 7-Elevens, I went west, into one of those parts of Kalihi most people don’t walk around at night. I actually feel pretty safe. There’s a police station on the same block as the store, and cops drive by all the time. Lots of them. In fact as I stood in front eating a tuna sandwich, six police cars came right out of the public housing area nearby on their way back to the station. I’m not exaggerating: in 20 minutes or so while I stood there, I easily saw 20 police vehicles.

So the tuna sandwich was dinner. I chased it with a Twix ice cream bar and a bottle of water. It totaled only 7000 steps, but that was more than I really set out to do, so I’m cool with it.

Came home, unwound, opened a can of pineapple chunks (the pricier stuff packed in pineapple juice instead of syrup) and sprinked some li hing powder on it (if you’re not from Hawaii, you don’t want to know). I drained off the juice so I can add some alcohol to it sometime Sunday.

My friend Tiger texted me to check up on me, and to invite me to a Zoom session for either her latest MLM project or someone else’s. JB answered my counter question about believing in God. I texted Sylvia and Ali in Boston late — they haven’t gotten back to me yet.

And aww. Crush Girl sent me a text to ask if I’d gotten one from her Friday afternoon. I hadn’t! I’m so glad she followed up because she might have thought I was ignoring her or something. Heaven forbid. We had one of our longer recent chats and it was really nice. She shared what she’s reading (something from one of those reading lists that’s going around lately) and watching (the movie we saw together early this year, this time with roomies). This was while I was watching The Music Man so I asked if she’d seen any versions of it.

I’ll not share her response.

Oh, seriously, if you love The Music Man and you haven’t seen this Chenoweth one, you really should if only to hear her sing “Goodnight, My Someone” and “‘Til There Was You.” Holy moly.

I didn’t touch the work I wanted to get done this weekend, so hopefully this will be part of Sunday’s project. We just passed 6:00 now and I must must must get to bed bed bed.

Go read Hawaii Stories. And reach out if you’re having some difficulty connecting. Connection’s important; it’s why I’ve been logging my interactions in this journal ever since the lockdown began. My own tendency is to crawl into my cave and stay there, but I know how unhealthy it would be, especially with the news as it’s been for three months. Reach out and connect if you’re feeling that.

I forgot to say Thursday I unintentionally missed the national news and only caught the second airing of the local news. I am not ruling out not catching the TV news as a reason for my having a pretty good day.

It took a while Friday morning for my brain to get into gear, but I finally got warmed up and got some good work done. The cancer center proposal is a big mess, but it’s a complicated document, and each time I go through it to fill in holes, it becomes less messy. I’m going to finish it Saturday I think.

Hawaii had nine new COVID-19 diagnoses yesterday. Nine. I think that’s more than the previous week’s new cases in total. Maybe the previous two weeks’. This is not good. And we opened up restaurants and bars Friday.

I spent most of my evening on final edits for the Hawaii Stories thing. It looks good. I’m proud of the work the writers put in. I’m embarrassed that it took me so long to get their work ready to share. I took more than twice as long as I should have. It’s a bad precedent.

I haven’t heard anyone actually say it, because maybe it doesn’t need to be said, but the NFL’s actually uttering the words, “we were wrong” is enormous. Its admission that the tension, stress, and strife begun four years ago by Colin Kaepernick means the players were right. And it means everyone who sided with the league was wrong. That’s a huge chunk of the customers the NFL is saying was wrong. Is wong.

Drew Brees admitting the same thing, even tweeting directly at you-know-who, says the same thing: you who celebrated my stance were wrong. I was wrong. If you still feel the way you felt, you’re wrong.

Frankly, I’m shocked. When you-know-who called kneeling players sons of bitches who should be yanked from the field, he effectively said the league doesn’t need a player like that. Friday the NFL said, “Without black players, there is no NFL.”

League owners have presented forever as if they make the league happen. And for some reason, working-class Americans who love football and normally side with labor consistently side with management when it comes to sports. I have never understood this.

Now the league is saying it needs these players and it knows its players are right. It’s all just words for now, but they are gigantic words.

One can’t help wondering if the NFL has taken a closer look at the relationship between the NBA and its players. Basketball players are treated much more like the partners they are, one reason coaches like Steve Kerr, Stan van Gundy, and Gregg Popovich have been free to speak out against the White House and its occupant.

I don’t know what’s going to happen, but for the first time in a million years, it feels like something might.

For breakfast Friday, I had a couple of hot dogs with mustard, ketchup, and sauerkraut. I didn’t want to but I just needed something hot and didn’t have time to prepare anything. I had a late snack of tortilla chips and fresh salsa. For lunch, I wilted and crisped a bunch of kale, as I did Thursday, but this time I opened a can of corned beef hash and fried it with the kale. I ate it with brown rice.

It wasn’t my finest kitchen moment. It was edible, sure, but neither ingredient really did much for the other. For dinner, which I just had a little while ago, I ate the other half of the lunch dish. I knew if I put it in the fridge as leftovers, it was eventually going into the trash. I love leftovers, but if the leftovers aren’t great, I procrastinate on them, often until it’s too late.

Okay, so meals were a general fail. I’ll do better Saturday. Maybe get some Korean veggies.

I also didn’t go for a walk so I could get a few things done.

Sylvia texted me first to talk a little about the protests this weekend. Sylvia cannot stay still, so I won’t be surprised if she’s at them all.

Jennifer sent me a photo of this sake she’s into. The packaging is beautiful, I said, and she agreed. I’ve never really gotten into sake although I sometimes think I should.

Crush Girl and I traded a lot of texts about the new phone and some of the options she might consider. Then we talked a little about the nine new cases. Uggggghhhh.

I’ve been staring at the screen for half an hour without typing anything because I feel like I have something else to say, but I can’t think of what it is. I think I’m also dragging my feet before heading to bed because I haven’t slept well in over a week. But here we go. It’s 5:30 and I don’t want to sleep my whole Saturday away, if there is sleep to be had.

If you’re reading this, stay safe and stay healthy, and stay away from people! And reach out if you need someone to connect with. I’m not going anywhere this weekend!

Thursday was a lot better, ‘though not because I got to bed early. I got to bed at a nice promising hour, and remained awake until nearly 6:30. Yikes. So I unintentionally got off to a late start at my desk — 10:30, which is quite late for me. I thought I would need to make some coffee just to slog through my work.

I consume caffeine daily in small doses, a little at a time, because of my BP issues. I’ll still treat myself to a good cup of coffee once in a while because I love it so much, but gone are the days when it was a daily indulgence. Same thing for tea. I’ve even cut far, far down on boba, going from three or four cups a week to one every other week or so.

I was about to get something stirring (since I don’t drink it at home anymore, I keep a few single-cup things of instant) and then realized I wasn’t feeling the need. I got to work on a Maui proposal and got it done a little more slowly than I should have, but I called on Old Faithful (ABBA Gold) and it did the trick. I got that done, then worked on the cancer center outline, then left that unfinished to finalize one of my college of engineering proposals.

I’m still behind. Confident I can get near caught up Friday, though. I’m feeling strangely good.

It might be the boba (roasted oolong tea with milk and tapioca pearls) I had this evening sitting in my car. It might be the new phone I set up while I sipped boba in my car. It was time. My old one was giving me all kinds of problems of the sort I can’t live with. And I’d lived with them almost a year.

I skipped the walk again, to manage a few things in the house and also to veg while my phone was updating. Both did me some good as well.

Breakfast was leftover spaghetti. I needed something like that to get me into my proposal groove. Lunch was overnight oats, which were meant to be my breakfast. Boring but satisfying. I sometimes take pleasure in the knowledge that I’m eating simply. Overnight oats can do it to me.

For dinner, I wilted a bunch of chopped kale, then crisped it up a little in some olive oil and stirred it into some blue cheese mashed potatoes. Some seasoning in the kale would have made it really tasty, but it was still decent just bland. There was enough flavor in the potatoes to keep it interesting. That’s the last of the blue cheese until I open the next wedge.

The boba was my only snack.

It looked like it was going to be a slow texting day, but it turned out nice. JB sent me photos of his bagels — they look great. He was pleased but lamented that they were so labor intensive. I sent him a link to that Bon Appetit YouTube video where the test kitchen chef tries to make gourmet Bagel Bites. I am a sucker for Bagel Bites, and a coworker I confessed this to sent me the video when she saw it, saying it reminded her of me.

The writing partner messaged me to say she’s finished reading The Glass Castle. I haven’t read it, but I saw the film (and reviewed it two years ago), so we chatted a little about that. I’m unlikely to read it unless she sees the film and tells me it doesn’t do the memoir justice.

I got a few texts from a coworker on Maui about the proposal we worked on together.

Then a friend texted me asking how he can admit to his parents something he secretly did a few years ago. That’s a rough one — I can’t say what it is, but it’s not dangerous or unhealthy or stupid. Just something that will really upset his family, although not in a permanently mad way.

I texted briefly with Crush Girl, mostly to test non-iMessage texting. Yeah, she’s not an Apple person. Still a nice person though.

My first text message from the new phone was to Suzanne. Just a test to see if it was working. She wanted to know when Silent Book Club was coming back. I don’t know. The venue is opening back up soon, but I’m not ready.

Sent Ali in Boston a small text to admit something about the phone. She had no idea what I was referring to, which is fine.

There are at least two new non-metal albums I’m really looking forward to Friday. Michael McDermott’s What in the World and Sarah Jarosz’s World on the Ground. Interesting they have such similar titles. I ordered the McDermott album on actual CD, so I may resist spinning it until I have the disc in my hands. Oh, I just checked the tracking, and I’m supposed to get it in the mail Friday morning. Nice.

I’m not seeing anything exciting in metal releases Friday, although I just discovered that The Sword put out a new live album, which I’m spinning now. The production’s a bit mucky, but since it’s stoner metal it kinda fits. I’m not seeing my favorite songs on the tracklist; however, it looks like there are covers of ZZ Top’s “Cheap Sunglasses” and Blind Willie Johnson’s “John the Revelator.” I love all covers of Blind Willie Johnson songs. Just took another look at the tracks and it’s not a live album. Looks like rarities album, since only the first third of the songs are live recordings, and it turns out “John the Revelator” was a non-album single a few years ago that slipped my notice.

Spotify just informed me there’s a new Michael Franti & Spearhead album. I listened to some of the early tracks last week, and they’re about what you’d expect. I’ll definitely spin this sometime over the weekend. Also new singles from the Waterboys, Kansas, and Elvis Costello. Should be an aurally interesting weekend.

Almost done with the Hawaii Stories thing. Finally. I’m working on a secret web project too — I got a little antsy with Silent Book Club and my new secret podcast on hold. So whatever. I’ll post links next week probably.

I don’t know what I’m doing with my Friday beyond working super industriously and spinning new tunes. Should probably decide what new thing I’m making in the kitchen.

Whatever you’re doing with yours, hope you have someone to talk to about it. And if you don’t please reach out. It’s is freaking total utter madness out there, and if it’s taking the kind of toll on you it’s been taking on me, just reach out. I’ll send you cute puppy photos and dumb stories.

Also, hang in there. This, uh, can’t get any worse, can it? I just jinxed it; I know.

Wednesday was not my best day, and I’m going to keep this short in order to make Thursday better.

My brain was an oozy mess almost all day, not just for work but in regular living. I’d walk across the room to grab something and forget what I was doing, then walk back to grab it and forget what I was there for.

I got work done, but didn’t complete anything and I should have completed at least one thing. It was frustrating.

Breakfast was a couple of hot dogs with mustard, ketchup, and sauerkraut. For lunch, I needed to get out of the house, so I had some Chicken McNuggets from McD’s, which I ate in the parking lot in my car. That may have been the best moment of my day, just some quiet time with hot, salty food and diet soda. Dinner, just eaten, was a bowl of spaghetti with my marinara sauce. I didn’t put kimchi in it as I thought I might, because I have some blue cheese I want to use up, although I can’t think of a reason kimchi and blue cheese in the sauce wouldn’t be great.

The meal was nice, but I didn’t have angel hair and that’s what I really wanted. I had two pounds of “thin spaghetti,” which is like three times as thick as angel hair.

Somewhere in there I snacked on tortilla chips and fresh salsa.

I skipped the walk because my body needed sleep, as it needs now.

I got a text from Sharon about some work stuff. It turned into some talk about her family. I wish that conversation had continued, but I was trying to get work done. Turns out the effort would probably have been better focused on the conversation.

Penny texted me and Grace a link to someone’s eight haikus — one to summarize each of the Harry Potter movies. I texted back (very late, as in just now) that it was an interesting idea but the writer doesn’t seem to understand the form beyond the 5-7-5 structure. Didn’t want to be unenthusiastic, but you know. Don’t send an Enlish major who took a course in Japanese literature (a 200-level course, but still a course) to just embrace a bunch of haiku.

Grace didn’t respond at all, so at least I gave Penny something, albeit seventeen hours later.

I’m not ruling out the day’s news as a factor in my lousy day, but I certainly didn’t make my mind a good space for absorbing current events and still doing my stuff. I’m going to bed now and will be better about taking care of myself, body and spirit, Thursday.

Reach out if you’re not connecting. It may take me seventeen hours to respond, but catch me at a good moment and I may be right on it.

At the beginning of each month at work, usually the first or second, I go through all my emails from the month before. The immediate reason is to compile my monthly report, a list of the writing and editing stuff I worked on, the campuses it was relevant to, and its status at the end of the month.

The other reason is to make sure I haven’t let anything fall through the cracks. I’ve always let something fall through the cracks. It’s embarrassing.

It takes time in a normal month. In a recent month it takes a lot of time, since almost all my communication is in email now. Tuesday it took even more time because holy cow: there was a gap in my inbox between August 2019 and May 13, 2020. I would usually assume there was a problem with the indexing, especially since my wifi is super unreliable, likely to break connection when the computer’s in the middle of something. There could have been a signal drop while Outlook was fetching my inbox.

Except that late Monday, I deleted my deleted mail folder. Had I been careless, accidentally selecting a wide swath of my inbox to move to the trash, and then deleted the trash? Ugggggh.

I’ll save the problem-solving routine for someone who wants to read about it, but it turned out my usual suspicion was correct, and the stupid trash-deletion was just concidental timing.

Still, it added quite a bit of time to an already time-consuming task.

I submitted it and worked a bit on the cancer center outline, which I still didn’t finish. It’s going to be my main thing Wednesday.

I reeeeally wanted to make another pot of angel hair and just eat it all day, but those leftovers scolded me everytime I thought of it. So breakfast was a couple of hot dogs with sauerkraut, mustard, and ketchup. That Costco sauerkraut is really very good. I haven’t done a cost analysis, but now it doesn’t matter. Whatever it cost me is worth it.

I didn’t have enough of the leftover stir-fry to make a meal, but I had some leftover watercress from when I made the stir-fry. So I threw that in some oil with some kimchi, fried it up, added the leftover stir-fry, and put that over warmed-up leftover brown rice. It was delicious. I was so happy munching on it while watching an episode of Orange is the New Black season four.

I’ve done very little cooking with kimchi. I invented kimchi pizza when I was in college, and it’s still one of my favorite things. I played around with a kimchi spaghetti dish and even got advice about it from a Korean chef-owner at a local trendy restaurant downtown (it’s a one-word French name, to give you a clue). She said I was onto something but was making things far too complicated. She suggested I just make my usual pasta-and-sauce dish, but chop up some kimchi and throw it in the sauce while it’s cooking. That was a couple of years ago and I haven’t tried it but I think I will, now that I have this very good kimchi in my fridge.

So yeah: kimchi in my stir-fry was great.

Dinner, which I just had after coming home from my walk, was the last of the off-brand Cinnamon Toast Crunch.

I did well cleaning out the fridge. At least enough room to feel okay about a nice pot of angel hair sometime Wednesday. Maybe I’ll add some kimchi to the sauce.

I had such difficulty getting out the door Tuesday evening. It wasn’t until midnight that I was finally out on the street. I kept thinking it was too late — that I was going to get back so late that I’d be miserable at work Wednesday, but I just really thought I needed the fresh air and circulation.

I think it was a good call. Man, I moved pretty dang slowly. I didn’t even go all the way up Liliha to Wylie. I only went up to Judd, then across to Nuuanu and down to School. And there were a lot of people out — I crossed streets many times to avoid them, especially coming back home on School.

I walked 15,000 steps, though, and while my feet and legs are really achey, I’m mostly glad I went. I’m breaking in new shoes and they are not making my feet happy right now.

There was even less connection Tuesday than Monday. AJ in San Diego let me know her book review is ready for me to take a look at. Sylvia sent me a random message about walking past some young asian people who smelled like artificial strawberry smell. JB let me know he was making bagels for the first time.

None of it turned into much of a conversation, but it’s cool.

Wasn’t in the mood for music Tuesday for some reason. I tried, spinning a few different things, sticking longest on some Talking Heads stuff, but even that didn’t last long. Just wasn’t feeling it. During the walk I listened to podcasts only.

I’m tired and it’s past five in the morning. Going to bed.

Yesterday I forgot to end with my usual invitation to connect. Here it is now. If you’re having difficulty finding connection, please reach out. I don’t know what it’s like where you are, but I’m still working from home until the end of June at least, and although things are opening up around the island, I’m not planning to make any changes just yet. One more month of locking myself down. So I’m here if you need a little two-way interaction.