Author: scrivener

I don’t know exactly why I’m planning to stay up super late to do some work, but I am. I’m not behind. I am a little swamped. So maybe it’s that. Kill it this evening so I get less swamped?

Not wanting to give my whole night over to the work, now I will write about me to me.

The stupid pandemic is going the wrong way. My boss took an informal survey, asking some of us if we were feeling more anxious with this delta variant exploding, and most people said yes. I said no. It’s pretty much the same amount of anxiety. I do not want this stupid virus, but if I get it I feel confident I won’t suffer from it much, and I’m unlikely to pass it along. I can live with that for now until data indicates I’m mistaken.

I’ve been dining out like a madman lately, apparently in an effort to make up for lost time. Mostly I get lunch on days I’m at the office, and occasionally dinner on the way home, and sometimes breakfast on the way in. On days I work at home, I mostly just eat at home. I’ve tried new places and they’ve been good. So Gong Dong for Korean food. Mian for Sichuan. Jejubing for Korean shave ice. A couple of bars for a cold one and whatever food looks good. I’ve dropped in on some old faves, like La Pizza Rina, IHOP, and Wendy’s. So far so good.

I even showed my vaccination card to get into one place. Bars are allowed to operate at full capacity if they check cards, and we had a work thing for someone’s birthday with an intended party of 13 to 15 that ended up being just 9. So cards were unnecessary but I didn’t know it when I showed up first, so I whipped my card out.

The birthday thing was fun. We reserved a private room mostly for privacy (and to get away from the bar’s VERY loud, constant K-pop), but we ended up singing karaoke the whole time. I’ve crossed the karaoke line with coworkers at this place of employment. Not a big deal. Two years ago I crossed the board-shorts-no-shirt line when we had a company picnic at this most gorgeous of beaches.

Speaking of lost time (yes we were; back up three paragraphs), the depression about wasting the gift of time this past year and a half is still on me, following me around and hovering, like a cloud of gnats. And (I guess) like gnats, it swoops in in waves, just invading my brain and bringing me way down for, you know, not all day or night but some amount of time.

I’m told I’m not alone. This makes me feel a little better.

It’s just a couple of nights before Ted Lasso season two starts. Do yourself an enormous favor and check out season one. I mean it.

Mythic Quest season two ended in a place where it could have been the series finale. I’m satisfied. I definitely want a season three, but it hasn’t been announced yet so who knows? I’m glad we got what we got.

Apple TV+ has this terrible original series called Physical. It stars Rose Byrne, who is terrific and whom I love, so I checked it out and now I can’t stop watching. I can’t say I like it, though, because all the characters are terrible. If you’ve already watched Mythic Quest and Ted Lasso, you might check it out. Trigger warning for bulimia.

I’m four episodes into season one of the Leftovers, which I only put in my Netflix DVD queue because Andy Greenwald kept talking about it when it first came out. I finally got to it (Aha. Who wasted his pandemic year? Not this guy!) and it is the most dismal, dark, depressing show ever. One of my coworkers says she loved this show so I’m going to stick with it for now. It’s compelling; I’ll give it that. But yikes. People who look askance at me for loving heavy metal with its themes of war and pestilence and death and decay but who can watch a show like the Leftovers can suck a lemon, a lime, and the marrow from the shattered bones of the fallen.

I’m about to fire up season three of Halt and Catch Fire too.

Okay I’m sated. Going to take a short nap and pound that work. Maybe.

If a show doesn’t do it for you, it just doesn’t. I get it. But man, I wish I could make people click with some shows just so they can get to the really, really good episodes.

A couple episodes in Forever with Maya Rudolph and Fred Armisen are great examples. If you were to just watch the episodes as stand-alones, it wouldn’t work. You really wouldn’t be seeing the show, and this is one thing TV (or TV-like stuff) has that movies don’t. The payoff after the long build-up, when you didn’t know there was a build-up. It’s like getting punched in the gut while you’re protecting your face.

An episode in season one of Mythic Quest did it to me too, although this great episode didn’t make me wish I could make everyone watch the series. But then *pow* two episodes in season two hit you even lower than the gut. Amazing.

So yeah I can’t make you watch it, but if you have Apple TV+ you really should at least check it out. Season two ends with the next episode, much to my heartbreak, but at least the new Ted Lasso season is coming up at the end of July. Yeah, I already renewed my subscription for another year. My free year ends July 5.

Sometime this week (I can’t remember when; time is meaningless to me anymore) I watched the first episode of The Leftovers. Have you heard of it? It’s dark as frick. In the twinkle of an eye, two percent of the world’s population disappears. Just vanishes. The series seems to be about what happens in the aftermath. And let me tell you: so far, there’s not a lot of light on this planet. People are broken, lost, hurting, and not their best selves. Yikes. And of course a religious cult pops up, adding weirdness and more darkness.

I have to say the first episode does not make me want to watch the second. If not for its being adored by critics I admire, I wouldn’t stick with it, but I might as well see a few episodes more.

In other news I’m sure you don’t care about, Helloween released a new album, its sixteenth studio album and its first self-titled. Which is kind of cool because all three of the lead vocalists in the band’s history sing on this album, together. Not just a song or two, but like most of the album. So the only album probably better suited for a self-title would be one where everyone who’s ever played in the band plays on the whole album, which would be crazy and amazing.

I’m not recommending it. If you think power metal is silly and laughable, which it is, you’ll find this album doubly so. If you think power metal is majestic, grand, soothing, and fun, which it also is, you probably already know whether or not you want to check it out. I’m spinning it now for like the fifth time and enjoying the heck out of it.

I actually did a bit of decluttering, returning to this enormous task after too many weeks off. It made me feel great, and I tossed a bunch of stuff. I wish I could make myself do it on the weekend instead of Monday evening, when it causes me to push several other things back, leaving me to turn in far too late. I need to keep trying. Failing that (again and again), doing it Monday evening at least gets it done and makes me feel good, if also sleep-deprived and miserable.

Weighing myself after weeks 2 and 3 showed me how these things fluctuate. I’m still down from week 0 but I’m up from week 1, and slightly down from week from 2. So yeah, a more concerted effort is definitely called for. I hit the beach Saturday and Tuesday, and I’m going again Thursday. I’ve done slightly less walking this week because I’ve been a little down, not to mention more sleep-deprived than usual, thanks to a couple of deadlines I recently took all night to meet.

Now that lockdown is nearly done, I’m seeing Crush Girl more often in our familiar context. While I still wish we were spending time together in other contexts, like the favor I did for her a few weeks ago, I’ll take this. We seem to be communicating more easily, with more familiar comfort. It makes just being friends a bit easier on my cold, battered, icy heart, but it also makes it a little more melty. I’ll take it.

I’m seventy percent of the way through Jakob Guanzon’s Abundance. I’ve slowed down because I haven’t been walking as many evenings as I was. Still pretty dang compelling.

It’s 9:30. I’m getting ready for bed. It’s been that kind of week.

* The title of this entry is the title of a Helloween album. It has nothing to do with anything I’ve written except that. What a ridiculous name for an album.

(I’m almost certain I’ve used this title fairly recently but whatever)

I’ll make this a fast one since it’s rather late at night. Just needed to get the fingers working a little before I turn in.

I bought that bathroom scale primarily because I needed to know my weight for a very specific purpose and I couldn’t for the life of me think of somewhere I could just get on a scale.

Secondarily, I really do need to drop some weight. Pandemic pounds and then some. I thought a couple of weeks ago that quantifying my steps these past many years has really helped. I try not to be a slave to the numbers, and often remind myself on days when I’m really not feeling it that it’s okay to cut short one of my walks. Yet the constant awareness of these numbers gives me something against which to measure myself. Like, if I find myself on consecutive days not feeling it, what’s going on in my body and mind?

Ideally, I think it’s best just to make the lifestyle change so that I’m not worried about numbers. I’m mostly there with swimming: I do it more for mental health than physical health and would keep doing it with no quantification. However, I do check my time in the water every time, just to see what I did. I can tell you how many buoys I swam on any given morning. And I still count strokes.

Not like I used to, when I was first getting back into swimming condition a long time ago. Now I count strokes when I’m swimming the Australian crawl (“freestyle”) because it helps me keep track of how tired I am against my own norms. And on mornings when I want to push myself, I can check my weariness against the number of strokes and set new goals. These things help if I want to get better and stronger, which I do.

I weighed myself last Tuesday, then didn’t step on the scale again all week. I wanted to have a normal week without thinking about my weight beyond however much I already do.

And yesterday morning I stepped on it again, seven days later, and I was down four pounds.

Progress, or just a standard ebb and flow based on my varying diet and exercise? Impossible to say with such a small sample size. So I’m going another week with the same approach.

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I’m tired as heck lately. Sleep has been a huge problem these past several weeks, especially the nights before my days in the office. I’m dragging aaaaaalll the time these days, but especially office days. I’m getting slightly concerned.

And this week’s been especially rough. Seems I’ve got ten times my usual number of meetings. One of them was at 8:00 and was followed by another at 9:00. It was my beach morning, too, so I had to nix my morning swim, which of course gets the day off to a bad start.

It’s all bringing me down. I’m not having a good emotional health week, which is my main reason for typing these words this morning instead of trying to get some sleep. It helps. I’m feeling clearer-minded already, so I’m off to bed. Perchance to sleep.

Won’t be for long, anyway. I have a meeting at 9.

Back in a Honolulu groove

A couple of Thursdays ago, I met some coworkers after work at a brewery a block from the office. It opened May 1 and it’s too convenient to ignore. I envision a lot of pau hana get-togethers. For me alone, if not for me and my officemates.

There were seven of us, including our new assistant controller whom I just met that day and invited to join us. I was the oldest person at the table by 12 years but whatever. Everyone my age has people waiting at home. Sylvia and Sharon were there, probably my two best friends at work, and they were my coplanners.

My first social gathering. My first time in a restaurant with anyone other than just me. It’s not a restaurant but it equates. It was fine. We’re all vaccinated. We wore masks when we weren’t consuming. I found myself not at all stressed.

It was a good warmup for the following Tuesday: my first day back in the office during regular hours. This was less fine. I had an upset stomach most of the day, and I’m not ruling out stress. Still, it was super nice to see people, and we caught up, and I could tell my coworkers were as happy to see me as I was to see them.

I wasn’t nearly as productive as I’d have liked, because I got only two and a half hours of sleep the night before. I used my lunch break for napping in my car.

Steppin’ out

The weekend walks around Keehi Lagoon, at about 6,000 steps, weren’t killing my knee. I still felt it but I wasn’t waking up crying as I did that night last summer. So now I’m going 7,000 steps about five nights a week and my knee feels about the same.

It’s better than nothing. It’s far, far better than nothing: the fresh air, diminishing sunshine, and quiet reading time are good for my heart and brain, and while the benefits to my body are probably questionable, 7,000 steps is better than zero steps, so for now I’ll take it.

It’s gotten to be such a part of my day that a couple of times when circumstances wouldn’t get me out the door early enough ahead of sunset, I went anyway and perambulated the park at night.

They’re closing Keehi Lagoon at seven in the evening, which is cruel in these early summer days, as there’s still a good chunk of daylight left. So more frequently, I’m doing Makiki Park. It’s a much shorter circumference and there are a lot more people, but it works. The park’s lawn is easy on my footsteps, my car is pretty safe, and “one more lap” is easier to make happen. Also easier to turn into another “one more lap.”

My books and my poetry to protect me

Stuff I’ve read while moving my body (including titles I’ve already mentioned): The Midnight Library by Matt Haig. A Pho Love Story by Loan Le. NBA Jam by Reyan Ali. The Time Machine Did It by John Swartzwelder. From Little Tokyo, With Love by Sarah Kuhn.

Oh, I also volunteered to beta-read my friend Stella’s novel-in-progress. It’s a good first draft and took about a week’s worth of evening walks for completion.

I started The Lost Apothecary by Sarah Penner last night. It’s super compelling and very interesting. Probably, strictly looking at the quality of narrative prose, better than anything else I’ve listed. I’m enjoying the heck out of it.

I’ve got my orange crush

In fifteen months, I saw Crush Girl exactly twice. Once to give her something (at her request) and once to do her a quick favor. A few weeks ago, I meant to write something about how I’m over her, pleased no longer to be swooning and instead to be enjoying what’s becoming (ever so slowly) a nice friendship.

But in the past two weeks, I’ve spent some quality time with her, and it’s coming back. Definitely not with the heart-stabbing sadness that once kept me awake at night, but with gentle aortic squeezes when she says my name. I can live with this kind of unrequited affection. And probably will for some time until I get over her. Again.

Most of the week was pretty productive by day and semi-adventurous at night. I was decently productive through most of the week, but I admit it was mostly to check things off the list without actually doing any real writing, and I have a couple of nagging writing projects I really need to get done.

Still, those checkmarks were assignments, and I got them done. People seemed pleased with my work. I also had four meetings and although I’m working on being a better contributor, I think I did okay this week. I’m a harsh critic of my meeting participation because I dislike meetings so much and I want to be better at them, since my aversion is so well-known in the company.

“That guy is so bad in meetings; it’s no wonder he hates them so famously” is a not as good as “That guy’s good in meetings; it’s too bad he hates them so famously.”

I made another Target run, this time for a friend who’s collecting packages of feminine hygiene products for a huge donation to a social agency in my neighborhood, to celebrate her birthday. I think it’s ten packages for every year she’s been alive or something. So I hit Target again and bought something like sixty bucks worth, which doesn’t seem like that much product for the price. No wonder indigent women and girls have difficulty. It makes me angry.

I also hit two neighborhood bars this week. One on Wednesday night and one this evening (it’s late Friday night as I write this). This makes three bars in a week, and I think I’ve just about gotten it out of my system. First, it’s kind of a pricey way to spend an evening. And while the food is great (I chose bars who are known for having good food), bar food is just not very good for you, at least not the stuff I had.

On the other hand, I got a lot of good reading done, which is my main reason for going to bars. With cafes not open late, I just want somewhere quiet to read, somewhere out of the house, in the company of strangers. I’m about 40% of the way through Matt Haig’s The Midnight Library, which I am rather enjoying.

There must be a decent, happy medium. I crammed far too much food into my gaping maw this evening, and that’s on me. I also had two beers when all I really wanted was one. Or one and a half. Maybe if I become a regular at some of these neighborhood spots, I won’t feel as pressured to spend more money at once, because that’s part of it. Nobody wants to be the guy everyone recognizes as the One Who Drinks Water and Just Orders Fries While Reading a Book.

If freaking Zippy’s had a more pleasant bathroom, I would just go there a few nights a week, as I did when I was a bus rider and didn’t have a lot of options, and when I was working on my master’s thesis and just needed somewhere I could work and not be pressured to give up my table.

I need the cafes to get back to normal. My favorite neighborhood boba cafe is usually open until 10:30, but these days it closes at five. Ugh.

I didn’t make anything new in my kitchen this week, or anything really worth sharing. Lazy quesadillas more than once. Lazy burritos a few times. Kimchi and tofu. I realized a few days ago it had been more than a month since I’d had spaghetti, so I made that twice, and too much of it each time. But geeeeeez it made me happy.

I played around with a cream sauce the second time. So it made me even happier but was of course even worse for me. Dang it!

I had cream in my fridge because I’d been jonesing for white Russians. I’ve been trying to use up the liquor in my house before I buy any more alcohol, so I’ve lately had black Russians. Did you know a black Russian made with tequila instead of vodka is called a brave bull? I had no idea until I looked it up to see if I’d somehow invented this. What a silly thought.

There are a few names for a white Russian made with tequila.

Anyway, in case you didn’t catch that, I used up my vodka and now I’m focusing on finishing the tequila and gin.

I didn’t listen to much music, preferring to fill the background with the sounds of baseball. I listened to a lot of ballgames, keeping up with my podcasts the rest of the time. I did spin some playlists when I drove anywhere, but I stayed close to home (except for the trek to Target), so the song count was low.

However, Gojira’s new album Fortitude dropped Friday and I’m loving it on repeat. Mostly it’s slow, plodding, dense, and heavy. I find it blissfully soothing.

I didn’t do a lot of texting this week. JB and I chatted about our parents for a little while the other night. Short exchanges here and there with Cindy, Julie, Crush Girl, Sylvia, Sharon, the writing partner, Penny, and Desi. A few work-related texts.

Neither did I watch anything new, except Nomadland Tuesday and Wednesday. It’s fantastic. I’ll post a short review sometime this weekend. When I had my eyes on a screen, if it wasn’t the news it was going back through highlights from Ted Lasso and Mythic Quest.

My free year of Apple TV+ expires July 6. Ted Lasso season 2 drops July 23. I could pay $5 for an additional month to watch it (tooooooootally worth it!) or $50 for another year. That saves ten bucks off the monthly price, but I need to figure out what kind of usage I’d need to make $50 worth it. Maybe if Apple added one more series for me to love, that would be three good series with limitless replays for $17 bucks each. That might do it.

I’m going to give The Morning Show another try, and I think I’ll finish up Central Park before my trial ends, but I can’t see myself getting very amped for either.

This week, I’ll re-watch Mythic Quest in anticipation of season 2’s drop Friday. Yes. Yes yes yes.

Okay, one last thing. I’ve been a little depressed — not like the waves of darkness that rush in and cover me for a week or more, but like little wavelets of it for a couple of hours here and there, and leave just the burden of their memory until the come in for another round.

It’s all related (I think) to that thing I mentioned some weeks ago, that this lockdown is just about over and while I made decent use of my time in these four walls, I didn’t make good enough use of my time. I have little to show for it, at least to the casual observer, and this matters to me.

My life is still a mess. It is far, far less of a mess (I’m kind of talking literally here) than it was fourteen months ago for sure, and I’m proud of it, but I’m still in a hole. I haven’t caught up enough to be on lvel ground, and that’s what I wanted.

So this week I identified one thing that was stressing me out: my vinyl. I’ve spent quite a bit of money these past few years of vinyl reissues of beloved albums, and I can’t keep the records where I used to keep all my records, for reasons I can’t go into.

So they’re stashed temporarily here and there where I hope they won’t be damaged accidentally by some stupid act of my own idiotic negligence. Yes, I know I just began two consecutive paragraphs with “so” but I usually begin ten consecutive paragraphs with “I,” so it’s an improvement.

In that first run to Target I bought a small two-compartment shelf. Those modular cube-like things, only it’s two of them in one unit. A good size for LPs.

Tuesday night I put the thing together, and THEN (this is huge) I tidied up the area where I wanted to put it. It took some time, and I did slightly more than the least I needed to clean up, and dang it felt good. When I put my stack of books-to-be-read on the bottom shelf and the LPs on the top shelf, and my autographed Ken Stabler football helmet (a gift from my sister) on the top of the unit, it looked great, and the area around the stupid shelf also looks great.

Looking at it even now, five nights later, makes me happy. The way taming the monster last year made me happy. This weekend I’m going to identify the my next small project and then I’m going to do it next week. I think I already have it in mind.

I’ll do the Friday 5 tomorrow. This weekend is about catching up on some personal writing and possibly some sleep. And hopefully some ocean.