paloma's journal

it's past 11pm, and still well over 80 degrees fahrenheit outside. the fabled heat wave is upon us!

i headed back home earlier today, and began the process of cleaning out part of my basement — enough to make a space down there to store the newly unloaded tools. though it is quite dirty down there, at least it's a reasonable temperature, being mostly underground.

i got sucked into working on getting various devices in my house to talk to each other. now, i can watch movies from my computer on the kodi (raspberry pi media player). of course, by the time i got it set up, it was too late to watch anything.

i made a tofu and rice "salad" with raw carrots and cabbage to eat for lunch at work this week. i think it will be a good thing to eat cold, since the weather seems to call for that.

now i must go to bed, since i have work tomorrow!

since my parents are moving out of their house to travel for a while, i am taking a bunch of saws and other power tools from their barn and bringing them to my house to set up a little workshop of my own. so mostly today i sorted through some of that stuff and loaded up my car. i also hung out with my family, went for a walk down to the bridge with my mom, and cooked dinner with my dad. then my younger sibling showed up and now we are all watching a cheesy bollywood movie.

andrei headed out this morning to wisconsin to visit their family for a week. i got a bunch of stuff done at home while i waited for the car shop to look at my car.

they called and told me that my front control arms were worn out, and needed to be replaced, along with the sway bar links. it was a hefty chunk of change, but my car seems to be in otherwise decent condition, so i went ahead with it. i felt stressed out at the unexpected expense, but i guess i sort of knew i was going to have to do something to the car and was delaying taking it in until now.

thankfully, the shop was able to finish the repairs this afternoon so i could still leave for my trip to visit my family in upstate new york. on the drive up, i saw some breathtaking views, which were particularly impressive because i have lived in the mountains for a lot of my life and am somewhat desensitized to their aesthetic value. but i was driving west up into them right at golden hour, and there was mist involved, so. fill in the blanks.

there was also this amazing cloud situation with a bunch of different layers and textures of clouds, all lit through from behind by the sun, with lots of detail and contrast. it was like one of those hyper realistic HDR photos of the sky or an exaggerated sky in a video game. as if that wasn't enough, there was a large sundog about 20 degrees to the left of the setting sun. as the sun turned more orange, the sundog became this shard of flame hovering in the air. i was like, holy shit. but i was also driving, so i couldn't really take a photo of any of it. though possibly it would have been quite difficult to capture anyway.

when i saw that, i decided that i was going to let that moment be the deciding factor of the mood of my day, rather than the car situation.

i hung out with my family, ate some dinner, gave my mom and sibling the birthday cards i made them. now it's dark and hot and misty and i can hear the stream through the open window and i am going to sleep.

i succeeded in my plan from yesterday of getting extra sleep and i had much more energy today. i also didn't have to leave for work as early as usual so i had time to put another coat on the tabletop. it just needs to cure for a while, and then i can sand it and coat the bottom...

it was really hot out, but luckily i was working most of the day inside. one of the things i worked on was learning rhinoceros, the 3d modeling / CAD app. it actually ended up being pretty intuitive and pleasant to draw and model in, and it seems like a very powerful app, so i was excited to learn something that seems like it will be useful in the future.

i dropped my car off at the shop on the way home so they can look at it tomorrow. it was making that odd noise on and off; i don't think it's anything serious but i wanted to do my due diligence before driving to visit my family.

my bike lock anchor arrived, so i installed it by bolting it to the cinder block wall in our garage. we are quite pleased to have one less bike taking up space in our hallway.

then i took a semi-nap in the hammock.

it's finally cooling off a little, and it looks like it might thunderstorm. looking forward to a chill evening, maybe we will watch a movie...

this morning i woke up and my body told me that i didn't get enough sleep, so tried to take it easy today. after work, i skipped my yoga shift/class (after confirming that the other volunteer would be there.)

the people i work for might be getting a puppy soon. i hope they do so i can vicariously enjoy it.

i made a little workstation in my basement and started coating the tabletop with polyurethane. i also planted a little shrub in the backyard — it's called blackhaw viburnum. i made a little rock garden around it to hopefully make it apparent that no one should mow or weed wack it down.

also, i saw the skunk moseying around outside. it was very cute.

hope i can get some extra sleep tonight!

today was rather wet and rainy. at work, i mostly worked on the computer. i figured out how to do some neat scripting in photoshop for batch processing files that will save a bunch of time. then we cleaned up the wood shop and david helped me cut down my giant sheet of baltic birch plywood for the kitchen sideboard. it came out looking very nice. on my way home, i picked up some wood finish and screws. but i will probably have to wait until it's not raining to coat the wood outside since the finish is smelly.

when i got home, we had a meeting with our friend tim about the future plans for polyphase portal. then i called my mom to wish her a happy birthday.

i have a lot of ideas right now about setting up a small wood shop in my basement. maybe too many ideas for my own good, as there are other things going on that i also need to attend to. between working during the week and traveling on the weekends, it can be difficult to balance everything. i'm going to visit my family this weekend, but after that i want to stay put for a while.

it's fun to have projects going on, but it's also important to give myself a chance to rest and go into parasympathetic mode. it will be a busy week, but i can still find little moments to chill out and remind my brain that i don't need to keep going nonstop.

i had the day off, so i mostly worked on various projects in a scattered manner. i have continued to ruminate on some woodworking/furniture ideas for things to improve around the house. three things i want to make soon, in order, are:

• the larger tabletop for our kitchen sideboard
• an angled speaker stand to point a speaker downward that's at the top of a shelf
• the coffee table / cabinet that hides a retractable tv

i found out that the makerspace sells sheets of high quality baltic birch plywood, so i went over there during andrei's shift and they helped me load a 3/4 inch sheet onto the roof of my station wagon. turns out that a full sheet of hardwood ply is actually quite heavy; i had planned to rip it myself on the sawstop at work tomorrow, but i might need some help handling it. i hope that the people i work for don't mind too much (they seem pretty supportive of me doing my own woodworking projects.)

other than that, i worked on a small coding project for andrei's business, watered the plants, made some designs in sketchup for the woodworking projects, and other miscellaneous things. now to try to get my sleep schedule back on track for my work week...

woke up a bit late, and started the day slowly. hung out a bit more with brenna, we made some music and tidied up from our cooking and craft projects.

on the way back home, i stopped by LSD, the venue we played at last week, to pick up some items we left there by accident. i got there via subway and citibike, then rode the citibike north over the pulaski bridge and caught the 7 to grand central.

on the metro north train, i came up with some design ideas for expanding our kitchen counter tabletop and building a new coffee table with a hidden tv that can lift up from inside with a motor. not sure when or if i will end up making it, but it would be a nice way to have our living room feel more open when we are not watching movies.

i got home and andrei had made a very delicious soup. then we watched a ridiculous korean sci-fi movie. and then it was now.

a rainy day hanging out with brenna and eitan in brooklyn. motivation to go out and about in the wet weather was quite low. we spent most of the day cooking, baking, and making cute tiny figurines and props out of modeling clay (brenna enjoys arts and crafts so i brought some clay along).

today was a bit nicer out — warm and summery but not too hot. i had to go to the dmv to get my car registration and driver's license transferred to connecticut. once i got that done, i hopped on the metro north train to nyc and met up with my friend brigid, who was at a show at prospect park.

the show had started earlier in the afternoon, so i missed the first two acts, but i caught the third one and it was quite good. it ventured into breakcore/digital hardcore territory. i'm not sure of the performer's name.

it was still light out when i made it there, and the situation of this show was amusing to discover as i walked around on the paths in prospect park. i knew the general area that it was supposed to be in, and once i got there, it was a matter of following the strange sounds which i assumed correctly would lead me to the show. when i stepped into a clearing in the trees, i saw a large grassy area with a cement oval where the performer was seated between two large speakers. in the surrounding grass, people were scattered hanging out, some dancing and some wearing strange costumes and some doing both. there was also a dog running around between everybody. it was a very festive, carnival-esque vibe.

it turned out that some of the people wearing the costumes were part of the final act, which was a four-person noise performance combined with a very abstract play, or perhaps an avant-garde dance piece. they used various costumes and props, including metal pots filled with burning wood, spray foam sculptures made to look like bones, a large puppet that was operated by all the performers at once, and several buckets of slime. that act continued until it got dark, and then brigid and i wandered off in search of bahn mi sandwiches.

now i'm in the basement of brigid's current house-sitting spot, getting ready to crash out on the couch.

another day of shed projects and other miscellaneous woodworking. after my work day ended, i stopped by the community center, but didn't use the gym. i just went in the sauna and took a shower. i was covered in dirt from working outside in the morning, but also the showers there are really nice.

then andrei and i went to weird music night, which is a monthly event at an art space here in new haven, and hosts many eclectic performances. this particular instance started off strong with a really good modular set by someone named kyle grimm, which meandered into IDM territory (i wish i couple upload a video here, but that is a project for another time). then our friend john who organizes the event played with his noise project, skulltower 5E, which mostly involved guitar feedback, strange masks, and that toy instrument you blow into that has a piano keyboard on it. there were a couple more acts as well, but each performance was in a different room so they were able to transition quickly between them, and each space had its own atmosphere with lighting and the art installations that happened to be up at the time.

i don't have work until next week so we got indian food and stayed up late watching a movie. it was quite a full day!

today, on my way to work, i saw the biggest snapping turtle i have ever seen in my life. it was midway through crossing the road as i passed. luckily it was large enough to be noticeable from a distance, so everyone was stopping and waiting for it to finish. it looked like it was about two feet long and probably weighed as much as a medium to large dog!

we continued working on the framing of the shed — i am putting a photo of the progress below. today we added the roof rafters.

after work, i headed to the yoga studio, to work the front desk and then join a class. the yoga felt great. after that, i tried to catch the tail end of a music performance at the library, but it was already over when i got there, so i just went home. andrei made an excellent dinner with lots of veggies and then we watched a nature show.

also, i had a dream last night that i and whoever i was living with in this fictional scenario had allowed 3-5 feral cats to move into our house. they were kind of cute but also kind of dirty. i did not want to touch any of them. they caused chaos and it was entertaining at times and annoying at times. in my dream i was mentally designing a little duplex "cat apartment building" (a series of small, padded cubes) for them to hang out in, and planning how i would build it.

i am allergic to cats, so i would never consider adopting one in real life, but i've dreamed about it multiple times.

it's late and i'm tired, but i want to keep up this journaling habit, so i will write briefly...

today was rainy, so we couldn't make too much progress on the shed. but i worked on the parts i could do indoors. i started off the day cutting "birds mouth" cuts into the roof joists with a jigsaw. i had to do basically the same cut 16 times, and when i did the last ones, they came out perfect. you could not tell they were cut with a handheld saw at all!

later on, it stopped raining, so i spent a little bit of the end of the day screwing the floor joists in. my knees got covered in mud; i probably shouldn't have worked outside at all but i was oddly determined.

on my way home, i stopped by the gym for the first time to try it out. i didn't want to overdo it, because i was doing physical work all day and i have yoga class tomorrow, but i tried out some of the various machines. i like the place; the facilities are nice and i like that they don't play any music or television out loud. (the muzak that my old gym in manhattan played in the locker room actually caused me to rage quit my membership.)

i self diagnosed my foot pain as plantar fasciitis. i talked to my mom on the phone and she said that she and my dad have both have had it too at times, and she gave me some tips.

andrei was visiting their sister, and came back with groceries. i made some food for my next two lunches. udon noodles, tofu, and veggies with szechuan style sauce. it came out pretty good.

andrei also did all of our laundry at nora's house, so my new thrift store purchases have entered circulation in my wardrobe. i am very pleased with my haul!

well, this ended up not being very brief after all. anyways, it's bedtime.

at work today, we continued working on the shed. most of the day was occupied by identifying and cutting recycled wood for the rafters.

on my way back home, i stopped by a community center i've been meaning to check out. they have a gym, pool, and saunas, so i thought it would be a good place to exercise and relax after work, since i pass right by it anyway. i signed up for a monthly membership.

we got a really sweet care package in the mail from a friend. i will need to find some things to send over to them :)

before bedtime, i finished setting up cross-posting to mastodon from this journal. so now i have the option to automatically post the link to my journal entry when i publish or edit it!

(i will probably only do this for specific journal entries that i want to share... most of my entries here are just notes for myself. not private, but not necessarily the most exciting to others.)

p.s. i shouldn't work on things like this right before bed, it's like an invitation to lose track of time.

today i did a float tank for the first time. i have been interested in trying it for a long time, and someone who works at my yoga studio also works at a float place nearby, and she gave me a voucher for a free session. i liked it! the water has lots of epsom salts (magnesium) in it, so it makes you very buoyant, and the float chamber is also insulated from any outside sound or light. i was in there for 90 minutes, and when i came back out, it felt like all of my senses were amplified.

other things i did today:

• published a blog post about friday's show, including a full recording of our set
• i made a logotype of our band name for the header of that blog post, and it came out cool, so i ordered some stickers of it
• did a little coding to fix opengraph (social preview) images on my blog and this journal

last night we watched a movie called the usual suspects.

it's getting late, but i still need to do a bit of cooking to prep some lunches for the week. then hopefully, if there's time, we can watch an episode of a vintage david attenborough nature show.