i keep starting journal entries with a note about how busy i have been. so when i say now that i've continued to be very busy, i want to state that it is no exaggeration. as someone who thrives on having at least some time each week for unstructured existence, this is not my preferred mode of operation... but there are some times of year when everyone seems to agree that everything needs to happen all at once, and this part of spring seems to be one of them.
here is some of what has been going on:
i worked two more AV event gigs at the natural history museum in manhattan. one of them was a strikedown that went late and i was there until 3am. i felt kind of hungover for a couple days after that; though i consumed no alcohol, it was the same feeling.
a couple days after that, i helped out with a show that andrei organized at ely center here in new haven, which we had 3 friends from out of town come and play at. so we were also hosting a bit, and i shot video footage and photos of all 5 performers in the show. i didn't expect to have as much energy for that as i did, but everyone did such a great job that i was very engaged throughout. i will include some of the photos i shot from that below.
i interviewed and prepared more materials for a still-currently-secret thing. i hope to find out soon how that is going to shake out. i will say more about what it is later if things move forward...
we hosted a party in our backyard yesterday in celebration of andrei's birthday. we did tie dyeing and lots of people came over, and much chips and dips were eaten. i drank half of a 3mg THC-infused lemonade (so 1.5mg). for someone like me who has no tolerance, that was a perfect amount to be enjoyable without actually impairing any of the functionality i needed for post-party cleaning. we also had another friend visiting who stayed over (two weekends in a row with houseguests!) we watched southland tales, which is a pretty terrible but funny movie. then, this morning, we all went to the diner near the west haven train station, which is the best diner we've found so far in the area.
i also participated in capitalism! i visited several thrift stores over the past few weeks, and i found some things that i was very pleased with, including:
- a vacuum cleaner that normally retails for at least $400, which is from a brand who claims they design their appliances to last 20 years. (it was in brand new condition!)
- some clothes
- a new hat (in the "baseball cap" form factor)
- a new bag — i suppose you could call it a purse — which i like because it holds its shape when sitting open, so i can easily fetch items from it while at work
- one of those kids' science kits for growing your own crystals (i gave this to andrei for their birthday so they can make time lapses!)
i also purchased something that was not from a thrift store: namely, a new e-ink drawing tablet / digital notebook thing. i have another one that is older and larger form the same company, which i have been using at my desk, but which was too big for me to want to carry with me anywhere. i sort of use hand-written diagrams and sketches as an extension of my thinking process, so i was previously using pieces of scrap paper, but i grew to really enjoy using the e-ink notepad as a sort of whiteboard (like, "disposable" notes, as opposed to notes i actually want to keep and reference later, which would be in my obsidian vault.) i also like the ability to erase things, since as a left-handed person, pencils are my enemy. and also, i stopped accumulating little crumpled-up pieces of paper.
long story short, after some deliberation, i decided to buy another digital e-ink notebook in a smaller form factor so i can carry it with me. so far it's been nice!
i must admit that a lot of the draw for me is that using them is more fun than a regular analog notebook. that's part of why, somewhere in my mind, it feels a bit wasteful to purchase a new electronic device for such a purpose. but if drawing notes is more fun, i'm more likely to do it, so perhaps i shouldn't criticize myself for that? it feels very nice to use a digital device that isn't connected to the internet. (i leave the wi-fi off on both of them, which also helps the battery life. for my use case as a thinking-scratchpad, there isn't much point in backing up my note files.) sure, a regular notebook doesn't have internet either. but the ability to just delete pages at will makes it feel like one of those stones that you paint on with water, and the image fades. there is a kind of low key zen magical-ness to it.
in less fun news, i have been having pain in my foot arches. because i have been so active, i haven't had time to pause and recover, so i've been experimenting with different shoe/insole combinations, and trying to remember to stretch more. i think i have plantar fasciitis? but i don't really want to go to an actual medical person at the moment (u.s. healthcare system, enough said) so i'm hoping to figure out how to manage it on my own for now.
i guess i'll wrap this up, as i'm not sure what else to write about. bye for now!
