the title of my last entry here contained the phrase "failed road trip." unfortunately, i think i jinxed something by calling it that because we had another incident this week which is even more of a failed road trip.
andrei, my partner, was supposed to be driving the van to minneapolis to work two events. but on the first stop, about six hours away from our home base in new haven, CT, the van's transmission decided to stop working. so they ended up getting the van towed to my sibling's house, which is something like halfway between home and where andrei was (getting it towed all the way home was too expensive). they left it in the driveway there, and i came and picked up andrei and all of their stuff that would fit in my (much smaller) car.
so, the result from my end was that i had to leave work early and spent 5 hours in the car yesterday, and i also need to drive them to the airport in hartford tomorrow. i was already feeling a little tired, but the rescue mission yesterday ended up triggering a very unpleasant headache, so i called out of work today to recover and catch up on some rest. i also canceled my (already rescheduled) trip to providence this weekend, to make sure i can drive andrei to the airport and travel to nyc for work the next day without overtaxing myself. i felt bad for changing up plans with my friend in providence twice, but they were understanding.
wow! a lot of logistics there. but that's where i'm at, i guess. i'm very thankful to have this rest day, where i don't necessarily have to do anything unless i feel like it. here are some other current and recent things, in no particular order:
- i started listening to the audiobook of shadow of the torturer, the first in the series book of the new sun by gene wolf. it was interesting, and i plan to listen to more of it during my drives to the airport and nyc in the next few days. the writing is a bit intricate for audiobook format, but i'm already quite curious about the plot.
- i'm almost finished watching casa de las flores in spanish. i think when i'm done with that i will watch narcos: mexico also in spanish to continue my "studies."
- i may, in the next week, need to help my bosses at the art studio take samples from a local pond to test for pollutants. i am pretty sure this was not in my job description as the studio manager and technician, but so it goes. apparently, since they are testing for PFAS and plastics and stuff, there are a lot of rules about how the samples are collected: what types of materials of clothing and shoes you can wear, you can't wear bug spray or skin lotion on the day of the sample collection... technically i don't know that we are qualified to do this, but they are very determined because the local government is trying to brush aside the environmental issues caused by a local landfill. luckily, i enjoy having a job that entails a very wide variety of tasks.
- i have two things in the works for AV club this month: a Physical Object, which i have in progress, and a Digital Snippet, which i haven't started yet, although i have some ideas. i am realizing that doing a digital snippet and a physical object in the same month might be tricky... but i'll give it a few tries before i decide to change anything. (the Physical Objects are only every 3 months, so hopefully i can manage.)
- we received a modular synth in the mail from a friend in australia (see photo)!
i also wanted to make a song for #halloweenMusicJam, a group project on fedi, but it might be tricky to make yet another deadline this month. i'll have to see how i feel, because i do have a lot of half-finished songs lying around, many of which have spooky ambient vibes. so without putting any pressure on myself, if i get a chance to polish one up, it could still happen.
anyway, that's enough for now, time to do some more resting.
