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Entry tags:

vital functions

vital functions

Reading. ( Scalzi, Wells, Gordon + Ziv, Burch + Penman, McMillan-Webster )

I have also done a bunch of variably directed online reading about models and theories of pain, and will happily recommend the British Psychological Society's Story of pain should this be relevant to your interests!

Writing. I am several thousand words and 18 (of 52) questions into the consultation on the EHRC Code of Practice consultation. The deadline is in a little under 24 hours. Approximately two thirds of the questions appear to be very simple and straightforward tickboxes. I am not super enjoying the free-text responses, and especially did not enjoy that despite the total lack of any indicator of a word limit there is in fact a word limit and it's 1000 words. I discovered this having written 2511 of the damn things.

More cheerfully I am also, as mentioned, enjoying playing with my pens for the purposes of notes about pain. I am increasingly convinced (cannot remember if I mentioned?) that I have Solved the Problem of one of my fancy pens having an unwelcome tendency to dry up when looked at funny, via the method of "giving the cap a bonus little wiggle once it's on". (It's the Visconti Homo Sapiens Bronze Age which, second hand, was a PhD completion present from A, because -- for those of you who aren't massive fountain pen nerds -- it's made out of a resin that's got crushed Etna basalt mixed in with it; I spent a while going "is it just because red-family inks are typically quite dry???" but nope, the effectiveness of the extra little wiggle suggests quite strongly that the spring for the inner cap isn't quiiite activating when I'd ideally like it to. This isn't necessarily a huge surprise given how sticky it was when I first got the pen, but it still took me... a while... to catch on.

Watching. Up to date with Murderbot. Remain grumbly about Decisions including "how little time the poor thing spends with its helmet up" and "how bad people are at poly" and also, fundamentally, the word "throuple" (I AM TOO OLD AND CRANKY FOR THIS NONSENSE, APPARENTLY), but am also mildly peeved that we've run out of episodes.

Listening. An Indelicates gig, which I almost could not make myself leave the house for but was very very glad I did. Not having yet managed to scrape together the brain to listen to Avenue QAnon significantly increased the proportion of new-to-me songs!

Cooking. Bread? Bread.

Eating. The branch of Tonkotsu a short way from the Indeligig venue turned out to have outside seating! And an updated menu since last time we made it to them, so we both delightedly consumed the chilli tofu ramen and also shared the cauliflower 'wings' and some edamame and the very pleasant yuzu lemonade and also also I tried A's Smoked Hibiscus Margarita and it was great. (I mildly regretted not being in fit state to actually want an entire cocktail of my own.)

Growing. I... harvested and processed 1.7 kg of redcurrants! And ate several handfuls of raspberries! Depending on how badly my neglect since Wednesday has damaged everything given The Heat there's at least as much again to come off the redcurrant bush, and the jostaberry and gooseberry were also both looking extremely promising. AND the second sowing of kohlrabi has started to come up.

Current Mood: accomplished
Current Music: ride e canta nel sole l'infinita nostra felicita // gloria a te!

Entry tags:

the squirrels are in the tree

hyounpark and I wrapped up our extremely concert-filled June last weekend with two shows in Wine Country, backing up Andrea Bocelli and friends. Three rehearsals in ten days with almost entirely new-to-me repertoire - it felt good to have that kind of intensity of practice again. It's different from regular rehearsal, where we have a month, two, sometimes even three to slowly, steadily polish a single piece. Harder to cram into daily life, but always worth it.

Saturday was also Hyoun's birthday, so I was highly amused when the sound check opened with La donna è mobile from Rigoletto. Because I originally learned that melody in fourth grade as a birthday song!

( Archiving the lyrics here because I know I was able to find it on the internet at some point in the past, but no longer. )

( the rest of the Bocelli concert experience )

And now, my Wednesday nights are free for a (very) few weeks! (Summersings start July 23, and then after that we're right into rehearsals for Verdi; I hope I'll be able to cram in one or two Wednesday night Friends With Bikes rides during the time off, but we'll need to see.)

Entry tags:

all creatures great & small

much yelling

There has been A Great Squawking audible through the open windows for much of the last week. Yesterday A got to witness the source and then this morning so did I.

You see. There is a slightly scruffy, slightly scrawny magpie, which we wouldn't even necessarily have clocked as a juvenile if we'd seen it by itself? But we didn't. What we saw was it being attended by two actually filled-out adult magpies... up to and including it sitting back on its haunches and raising its mouth to the sky and continuing to yell until food was placed in it.

We have also got to watch it hop around in important little circles, intermittently pecking disconsolately at the ground, because apparently this is how the grown-ups make food appear!!! and it has not yet quite managed to work out why It's Not Working for baby, who is a Good Brave Baby who is doing All The Right Things and yet??? no food?????

And now that we have matched the yelling up with the culprit, I am grinning every time I can hear it, not just when it's visible. :)

Entry tags:

on pain of pain

some good things!

Went on an Adventure to post a lost item back to someone (hopefully in time for the next thing they want it for...), and was rewarded with DUCKLINGS.
Not too warm to achieve fallback dinner of I Don't Know, Bake A Potato, with the result that we finished the lurking salad leaves and also stuck some of the cook-from-frozen pasteis de nata into the oven once potatoes were done.
Ridiculous organic greengrocer had an option on sending us rainbow chard this week, which means I might actually manage to cook one whole new recipe this month (!), which was otherwise... not looking likely. (I have been comprehensively failing to sow any, but there we go.)
Went fossicking in sofa to try to at least rationalise my horrid piles. Found one (1) of the two (2) fancy watch chargers I own, and not the one I was expecting to turn up (because I thought I'd probably mislaid it in a field), which hopefully means that given a leeeetle bit more fossicking I might even find the second.
Really enjoying playing with pens for the purposes of making notes on the pain reading. (Today has been Mindfulness for Health, with detours to read up more on the gate control and [neuromatrix] theories of pain; I was surprised that Model First Proposed In The 1960s is still apparently more-or-less the best we've got for "how the fuck does psychology and emotional affect and other sensory input actually affect how pain is experienced?")

Entry tags:

culture consumed

Things

Books
Still reading A Power Unbound.

Comics
Caught up on Order of the Stick (I was at about #1319, and the most recent one was #1328.) Welp, that was a thing that happened.

Things are also Happening in Dumbing of Age. I am looking at the title text in June 24's strip and glowering distrustfully at Willis after what happened last big finale.

Games
Playing a lot of Simon Tatham's Puzzle Games on my phone.
Slay the Spire: have now unlocked Ascension 4 on all four characters. Surprisingly (to me?) the hardest run on Ascension 3 was with the Defect.

Links

The Bedbound Activity Masterlist: Part 1 (Also good for insomnia or for when it's too cold to be anywhere but under the covers, even if you're not bedbound.)

A New Ballet by Underrepresented Artists: "The Little Mermaid reimagined as a disabled, queer and brown coming-of-age story for 7 dancers." The link is to a fundraiser, but even if you're not up for donating there's a video there from rehearsals that might be of interest. (Disclaimer: I can't be objective about this show, one of my best friends is dancing in it.)

Crowdfunders for the UK's Trans+ Solidarity Alliance: Support Trans+ Solidarity Alliance and Maybe I'm Trans? (with badges). (hattip: rydra_wong)
Internet users advised to change passwords after 16bn logins exposed. As usual, HaveIBeenPwned, you know the drill.

Cats
Ash is down an incisor and a canine as of last Tuesday. He was good and brave at the vet and, after he got home, patient with Dorian's mistaking him for a stranger because he smelled Wrong.

Phenology
No new kangaroo visits. It's been very cold out.

Entry tags:

on pain of pain

pain-related articulation of the past 24h

If you have had long-term pain, of any kind, for any reason, a component of your pain is neuroplastic. Neurons that fire together wire together: you've had lots of practice at being in pain. This comes down, fundamentally, to how we learn.

Which means that while neuroplastic pain management approaches may very well not solve all of your problems, they'll treat a component of them, and that's worth having -- in exactly the same way that we don't want to e.g. give up painkillers that "take the edge off" but don't solve the whole problem.

(None of this is actually novel except insofar as most education about chronic pain blithely asserts that "most" healing has completed within 3-6 months, so pain persisting beyond that timescale Is Neuroplastic unless you've got cancer we suppose. So in the context of My Project, the framing of "this is an approximately unavoidable complication of your underlying condition that requires active management in its own right" strikes me as important.)

Entry tags:

[bats] today's brilliant idea

It is warm. We have the bedroom window open at night. Dusk is currently around when we are heading to bed.

... I realised I could prop the bat detector up in the open window while we went about our Bed Things and it worked. (Alas A missed most of the activity on account of being in the bathroom, but Proof Of Concept still valuable.)

Other achievements of the day include "1.7 kg of redcurrants picked, processed, and in the freezer" and "finished All Systems Red: the reread" and also "almost finished The Way Out reread".

(I am so so pleased about the redcurrants; turns out that mulching and pruning heavily and watering... works?! Who knew.)

Current Mood: indecisive and curious

Entry tags:

everyone loves a poll (FFVFJF2025)

So next Monday, I'm going to start a Four Job Fiesta run of Final Fantasy V, whee! Problem: I am really torn on what kind of run to do.

( putting under a cut because slight spoilers for Final Fantasy V gameplay )

today's questionable research hole was the sex ratio of adult zebra populations

I was trivially able to dig out an example of a documented 5:1 female:male ratio.

Why yes I am rereading The Way Out (previous commentary) for the purposes of making notes on content and structure.

Entry tags:

vital functions

vital functions

~~... is a placeholder because I am doing so badly at routines in general and bedtime routines in particular, still, augh.~~

Reading. Adventures in Stationery, James Ward. Not entirely sold on the way anecdotes were strung together, and definitely dubious about the broader social history, but a pleasantly undemanding diversion in a week where I really needed that and for bonus points it finally explained The Thing About Blackwing Pencils to me.

( Stationery nerding. )

Watching. One more episode of Farscape (S02E02 Vitas Mortis), while bleaching A.

Cooking. Mostly Pasta With Things. (Things have included "kohlrabi and misc other greens from the allotment" and "psuedo puttanesca".)

Eating. STRAWBERRIES. Have also nibbled, from the allotment: peas! broad beans! aforementioned kohlrabi! cherries! the first raspberries! redcurrants! jostaberries!

Exploring. ... bits of a field? OH and I bimbled down to the post office and, en route, checked how the local quince tree is doing. (FRUITING.)

Creating. Painted A colours!

Growing. Iiii just about made it to the allotment to water things on, like, Tuesday, but I have otherwise been... struggling.

... the ginger at home continues to go zoom, though! And I really really need to pot it on, eesh.

Observing. BAT.

and so the year turns: solstice

Entry tags:

migraine

egregious backdating for completionism's sake

I went "HOLD ON I HAVEN'T POSTED--" at 00:01 last night, when I had already been in bed but failing to sleep for about twenty minutes, and so I will tell you that part of the reason that I did not manage to actually post, actually yesterday, is that my reward for having finally e-mailed the headache clinic and said "so yeah I took my loading doses in mid-April, sorry I didn't manage to e-mail at the time, executive dysfunction has been eating my entire brain"...

... was of course a response like "well ideally your follow-up appointment would have been last week but, okay, fine, how about Monday? :|"

"... oh and by the way you know those questionnaires we want you to submit a minimum of a week in advance? yeah if you could get those done too--"

-- which: ENTIRE brain.

(I managed to confirm the Monday appointment. I did not manage to get the headache diary and questionnaires done.)

Current Mood: busy
Current Music: when it's dark, can this world revive

Entry tags:

to reach the brightest light, to reach the mighty sun

I started writing about our May concert weeks ago, and then got caught up in the swell of all of our June concerts. Three down, two to go!

hyounpark's mom and sister came out for our May concert - they'd wanted to come for Bocelli, but we took a look at ticket prices and required hotels and were like "even for a once in a lifetime thing like this we cannot in good conscience ask you to shell out mid-four-figures for a weekend in Napa." So instead, they came out for the reprise of Here I Stand: Paul Robeson, which also included Jasmine Barnes' Sometimes I Cry, and Brahms' 2nd Symphony. The performance went well, and was recorded! So I'm looking forward to being able to share that when it's released.

We also stuffed ourselves silly that weekend, but it was a good chance to just hang out at Leonard and Sara's and be lazy and have family time. Takeout sushi from Miyozen and wings from Wingstop while we worked on puzzles; curries for dinner from House of Curries; an excellent Hunanese dinner at Wojia the following evening.

H might have been a little more strategic on the eating front; 36 hours after we were onstage at the Paramount, he ran Bay to Breakers. I happily raced him across the city on the train per usual; devoured soda bread and a ganache cold brew on the beach at Sunset Dunes while waiting for him to catch up.

After that, we launched straight into prep for Beethoven and the symphony gala fundraiser. While we were waiting to go onstage for the gala, my little corner of sopranos was by what was very clearly The Party Table at the fundraiser. Highly amusing. We made ABC News for like half a second, and I was mostly blocked by the piano; perils of being a short soprano, lol.

Beethoven's 9th last Friday was the official wrap on our season, and I'm glad our director said what he did about it in his introduction, referencing that Beethoven was writing it in a time of much upheaval; that no matter the challenges, in our community, we seek and elevate joy; that this is our calling as musicians. An die freude, indeed.

*

We're approaching six years out here in California, now; as of yesterday, celebrating 20 years together with

hyounpark. (25 years on LJ/DW, at least off and on.) It seems like the universe is recognizing it, nestling into that theme of growing community ties. Just in the last week alone:

- H and I went to an a cappella concert on Sunday at the Freight, and one of the musicians was a college classmate.
- one of the additional singers we brought on for B9? Turned out to be my elementary school music teacher, who now lives less than a mile away from us. She was like, "Oh my god, I was so strict in those years!" Me, ever the diplomat: "Eh, I'd call it orchestral." Everyone in listening distance cracked up.
- on my way to rehearsal on Tuesday, I ran into one of my biking friends as they were going into BART and I was coming up out of BART. I'm finally starting to run into people serendipitously more often!
- at bike brunch last Friday, one of my friends from the food writing class I took in March was at the cafe we'd ridden to, and apparently they bike too, so of course I invited them to join us on future rides.
- at the B9 concert, friends in the audience included new biking friends, old fandom friends, and even older elementary school friends.

And now, we just got a last-minute song added to our setlist for the Bocelli concerts this weekend about 45 minutes ago, so I go cram. And make sure my clothes are washed. And check the Wine Country weather. And overhydrate. And make sure of our carpool. And that I have coughdrops. And sunscreen. And shoes that are both concert-dress-appropriate and walkable for tromping across the vineyard grounds.

oof but I am having difficulty getting back into routines post-event

I have managed all of my physio once and only once this week. I have not yet got on the mat at all. I have been spending a lot of time asleep, which probably shouldn't surprise me, and a fair amount migrainey, which does (unpleasantly). Have this evening at least managed to send the email to the headache clinic that's been due since April, and consequently may or may not actually get an appointment in time to get a prescription in time to not need to reload the f2f galcanezumab again.

(Have also been really struggling with actually opening notebook since the last trip up north, which is helping precisely nothing. Maybe acknowledging that here will make it a little less scary to go back to, at least.)

Entry tags:

my day

More tiny excitements

* Shelves are fairly well stuffed. The other brackets have arrived, so we can go get more boards and tiny hardware at our convenience.
* There is now Shelf in the living room. Things are going in it.
* Household tidying progresses.
* Today I filled boxes for 13 weeks of my morning and evening pills. It feels like it took less time than usual, but I think that's a trick of the light. I think I usually start later in the day, and keep going until it's dark. It took about four and a half hours; I try to allocate at least 5.
* This means that I've got pills packed until sometime in September. Go, me?
* Juneteenth is tomorrow!
* Turns out that being a director at a certain kind of non-technical organization means that you spend evenings face-down in the user interface level of a misbehaving database. I am chockablock with sympathy.
* Yellface is adorable, and likes to spend the part of the day when I'm awake but still in bed sitting on my legs.
* Had games and pizza with friends last week; they've got a young-ish teeneager placed with them right now. She wasn't up for games but she did appear to fill her water bottle. Luna-cat is very curious about new people and apparently charged her, which was off-putting. I faded early.
* I got some new bras; I'll have to add pockets but the test wear was promising!
* Nobody told me about the dragons in The Priory of the Orange Tree, everyone just mentioned the lesbians.
* There's a new serial at

the_comfortable_courtesan!!!

Entry tags:

culture consumed

Things

Books
Started Freya Marske's A Power Unbound.

Fandom
I'm mostly reading Nine Worlds or The Goblin Emperor fanfic right now.
Recs:
A Nuisance Though Thou Art, by

wedgetail. (The Goblin Emperor, complete.) Setheris dies when Maia's eleven.
Wheel and turn or bleed and burn by

Drel_Murn. (Nine Worlds, WIP) Pern fusion. The fire lizard character is a delight. Mind the rape/noncon warning: that's not just because of the dubcon nature of mating flights.
fake a smile, by

ariex09,

crownedrooster,

fire_eyes_chica, and

rattyjol (Nine Worlds. Series: five complete stories and two WIPs.)

crownedrooster wrote an upsetting fic back in late 2023 in which Fitzroy, during ROFA, makes a bad bargain with a memory-stealing creature. Since then, various people (including

crownedrooster) have written follow-ups, fix-its, make-it-worses, and complicate-it-furthers.

Music
Listened to the Doors' song 'The End'. Did no one in the recording studio try to help that poor man? During the bridge, I mean, when he stumbled into that giant hornet nest and they all started stinging him.

Crafts
Didn't actually do a craft, but I did go to the introductory safety talk at a library's maker space, so now I can go there and use the equipment.
Things I learned there:
- The Cricut's pressing plate (operating temperature 200'C) is not an elbow rest. (The librarian giving the talk reported that it used to be located in another part of the room, but they kept on leaning their elbow near or on it. It wasn't turned on at the time, but their supervisor saw the writing on the wall and made them relocate it somewhere harder to touch accidentally.)
- The word "Cricut" is pronounced "cricket", not "cry, cut" as I'd thought.

Games
Still slaying the spire. I've now gotten every character up to at least two ascension levels, three for Clad and the Defect.

Weather
So fucking cold. So of course my hot water boiler went on the blink this week. Fortunately it just needed power cycling. Unfortunately I didn't think of this for myself. I'll know next time.

Nature
I saw a kangaroo in my backyard on Monday.
What was it doing there? Hopping.
How did it get there? Through the driveway.
What kind of roo? Eastern grey.
How big was it? Standing upright, I think about as tall as me, but it was too far for me to be sure.
Male or female? I didn't ask. There was something dangling, but I didn't get close enough to see if that was genitals or a joey. Given the height, probably a boomer?
What did you do? Stared at it, took photos, did not approach.
How did you get it out? I didn't. I watched it to make sure it wasn't hurt or sick or stuck, then went to the library for the safety talk. It hopped out again before I got home.
Pics or it didn't happen? For privacy reasons, I am not posting pictures of the kangaroo in a public Dreamwidth post. But I did take photos.
The kangaroo's privacy? Yes. I don't want to antagonise it.

today I have mostly been asleep

The watch tells me I achieved +102 "body battery" points, which I am amused to see.

But I have also visited the allotment (on my way back from physio) and have eaten: raspberries, a strawberry, a cherry, redcurrants, jostaberries, peas, broad beans, kohlrabi. V pleased.