Brunch

 

Letters from Home: Friday June 16

The air cleared up from the smoke and that was nice, but now is heading towards trouble again, and will get a bit worse over the weekend. The midAtlantic region is getting a lot of the upcoming smoke, and even so, the mountains are as helpful as ever. I’m a little concerned about some periods Friday night and Saturday morning, but there’s nothing I can do about it except plan to be inside. Vivian and I are planning to go see a movie on Saturday evening, with possible dinner out afterwards.  I have an air quality app on my phone (it doesn’t give alerts or anything, which is a shame, but I feel certain something like that is being developed as we speak), and I check it before I go out. She of course wants to visit Mast again, and visit the barrels of candy. 

Acupuncture was great. My Uber driver on the way was the owner of War on Books, and we got to talking about bookshop owning and Industrial Society and how we have made our patchwork way in a capitalist world. He has an MFA in Poetry, and I started talking about how manifestos in general are some of the most overlooked specimens of persuasive writing — everyone wants to focus on the practicability of the ideas that are presented, and while that’s interesting, I really dig how any manifesto of any kind has to first and foremost be persuasive. I like looking at how the words and the whole work was crafted, like when did the reader find herself swept away by the ideas, and when did the writer lose us, and how and why was that — was it because the idea was too grandiose or too cruel or was it because the writer simply forgot to keep hold of our hand as we walked in this vision of a better world?

 

He was kind of blown away by the idea of deconstructing manifestos as persuasion, and asked if I wanted to do a workshop on that.
Of course I said yes.
We have no details beyond our enthusiasm, and that’s a lovely space to be in.

 

I told him I have a draft of a book proposal about Theodore Kaczynski, and how publishers for a long time wouldn’t touch it. He asked if we could talk more about it, since he thinks it would generate some serious interest now, not only because the man himself just died, but because the idea of the dangerousness of intelligent design is really hot, too, and this is of course the intersection of that.

 

And then we were at acupuncture.
Greg and I talked about things as we always do, and then also talked about how we are going to have a transition plan for my treatments while he’s out for a couple months in August and September. We’ll probably use Katie, not because she’s the best (she’s probably second best of the acupuncturists in Roanoke who are not Greg), but because she’s only three blocks away from the Loft. Greg said that he was thinking last year that perhaps we needed to add in a treatment acupuncturist supplement who can just “do the needles part” (this is called being a medical acupuncturist, while what he does is a full blown doctor of Chinese medicine) in between visits and on an emergency basis. We both think I would benefit from being able to be treated as soon as possible after those nights of hard sleep, or other episodes.

 

The treatment itself was really great, too.
And then I came back to the Loft.
I always find myself astonished that i am back in the workaday world after an acupuncture visit. Seems ridiculous, honestly.

 

I did the work thing, and nearly fell asleep at four, so I got up and walked to the roof and back and had a glass of milk, all of which helped. The release meeting went long since one of the operations engineers didn’t show and we ended up waiting an hour to make sure we weren’t starting an interdepartmental war by just doing it ourselves. In the waiting time, we ended up talking about the nothing things, including how amazing the 2004 Battlestar was and still is. 

 
I have read the remaining chapter and checked in with some of the responses for this half-week.
The video introduction is due tomorrow by midnight, which would have been true for my scheduled availability anyway.
I’ll probably do it tomorrow night, mostly because I hate them.
HatesThemWeDoes.gif

 

I have tea and knitting and I don’t know if I’ll watch something or just let the yarn be as fascinating as it is.
Life is good.

A very smokey Thursday

The air smells smokey and I could taste it on my walk to the gym, and then my walk with Kat. We did 1.5 miles, and it was a nice walk and talk about not much of anything. We both love talking about apartment layouts and possibilities and of course TheRentSituationTheseDays, and it was all very nice. This continues to be a great start to my day.

 

I took the clean towels to my gym locker, which addressed the last of the Laundry folding issue, and it was nice to have the couch visible when I walked in.

 

Yesterday I made a frittata from the massive amount of eggs and spinach that I had and it was really good. I added  mushrooms, scallions, and radishes, and the radishes really roasted nicely, giving just the right amount of starchiness and substance. How to Make a Frittata.

 

 

There was enough that I have several grab-and-go slices in the fridge, and I like this. The bread that I made yesterday has just the right amount of crispness to make a nice sandwich from a slice of the frittata. The flavor has a depth that makes me want to make grilled cheese, which is never a bad thing.

 

I've had difficulty with aspirating this morning -- sometimes the neurology gets the wires crossed and "swallow but don't breathe" doesn't worksmoothly. Then I end up coughing, which sparks a headache and wears me out. Combined with the air quality this leaves me tired and wanting to just crawl in my cave. I'm very grateful I work remotely.

 

I have acupuncture at lunchtime, and I'm looking forward to it.

I didn't go get the milk yesterday, so I'll need to go down and fetch it this evening before I meet with my writing student. 

Life is good.