11.22.2025 Trying to break my habit of constantly listening to something (audiobook, podcast, etc). The windows are open to let some air in. What I am listening to now: Silas' purr, wind chimes, a neighbor getting home, a brief car alarm followed by laughter, a distant train. 11.11.2025 11:48 PM I've just dropped my love off at the train station. Back in bed now with Silas wedged against my chest, his insistent chin presses on my arm as I type. Every so often, he flicks his tail against my leg in protest of my late night fishing. Have fun @big8grug and @breadbasket :) 11.3.2025 I don't like how chunky this has gotten so quickly... maybe I will keep a rolling log of my last 10 posts? I want simple things and the time to enjoy them. There are so many things I want to do. I need to learn to live in the moment rather than squander it worrying about how I will have my next moment. But how can you make sure the moments happen? I am working on holiday gifts. I am horrible at gift giving but I long to create beautiful tokens of friendship and love. Trying not to burn out, there are so many wonderful people I want to thank! 10.30.2025 Yesterday was my birthday. I don't think I will ever recall the celebration without a smile. My heart is full. Thank you all so much ♡ •ᴗ• ♡ 10.22.2025 I can remember what the basement of the Montessori school smelled like. Not moldy or musty; maybe it was just the concrete and cleaner they used. In the winter or when it rained the lower elementary would eat lunch there. Once, while in line for the microwave, I dropped my lunch. I think it was beans and rice (it took my mom mentioning it once in a story years later to realize that the family affinity for beans and rice was due to financial strain, I just thought we liked it). It was, and still is to a lesser extent, unbearable for me to be a center of attention. The school offered to let me have whatever they had made for the daycare kids' lunch but I was too petrified with embarrassment to accept. Anyways, I dropped my lunch at work today and my hunger is a growing distraction. 10.18.2025 Went to a wedding yesterday for two friends from college. It was amazingly perfect (except I squandered my chance to ride the carousel). The bride and groom were unbelievably beautiful. I couldn't stop smiling. My cheeks hurt today and I finally realized it was from smiling nonstop all night. 10.16.2025 "Anathema" is a funny word, feels nice to say. My Archeology and Ethics professor used it frequently. Later I read a book, can't recall the title, but the author's tendency to use that word caught my eye. The author was also an archeologist. What is it about archeology that makes that word so attractive? Or is this a fluke of my sample size of 2? 10.14.2025 The weather today reminds me of recess. When I was in my Montessori elementary school (shameless plug, it made me who I am) there was a very tall teacher, Stewart. On occasion, he would push you on the swings. You would know this was about to happen when some kid began the cry "STEWART PUSHES" thus kicking off the race to claim one of the ten or so swings. Stewart would walk back and fourth across the row and push you so high, you felt like you were flying and the weightless moment at the top of the arc seemed to last forever. The Montessori school had lovely old radiators with a boxy housing. In the winter, placing your rug next to one so you could lean against its warmth as you worked with the bead frames or word classes is still the epitome of comfort in my mind. Every time I write the word "recommend" I remember writing my (monthly?) book reports- I always spelled it wrong. "I recommend this book to people who like..." was how I ended every report. I can remember exactly where I sat, cross legged on my rug, composition notebook in hand, to memorize it, one C, two M's, written in cursive of course. I took a rug from my Montessori when I graduated 5th grade and keep it next to my bed. Once a boy in the lower elementary looked up from his work, studied my (7-8 year old) face, and said "You look like Saddam Hussein." I stared at him in utter bafflement. "Do you know who that is?" I nodded. 10.11.2025 It's crazy when people perceive you, ya know? Can't be doing that all the time. Stop it. I'm not here, I'm there. On the other hand it's nice to be perceived. They see u, and they like what they see. That's cool. Sometimes you need to be alone so you can watch TV like you're 12, sitting on the table, 2 feet from the boxy screen, remote in hand, one ear waiting to hear the garage door open. 10.9.2025 It is FY26 now. Isn't that just like business to start the year early? Constantly escalating costs, estimating for an unknowable future where limitless growth awaits. "Congratulations on $400M in Sales!" said the sheet cake at the EOY celebration. I leave in the middle of the award ceremony where they admit that the introductions for the recipients were written by AI. I had to go to my horses' dentist appointment. 10.7.2025 Someone at my workplace has been throwing crumpled yet unopened individual sweetener packets (the kind they keep in little trays on diner tables) on top of the cabinets in the break room. The edge of one tossed too close to the front of the cabinet caught my eye as I filled my water bottle. Intrigued by what kind of debris would be in such a place, I reached my phone's camera over the edge to snap a picture of the strange trove (at least 40 packets of all varieties) hidden from view. Why? 10.5.2025 Wonderful new friends appeared downstairs one day last spring- or maybe it was summer. The first new friends in quite some time, though I think that may be my fault. Too busy trying to fit it all in, chasing more time to fill it again. When does it feel like enough? That's why I am here (this site) now- the friends, not the time. I get self conscious easily, not analytical enough fit in with the engineers I work with and too normie to fit in with the artists. I think I'd rather be an artist, but I proudly wear my engineer's ring even on the weekend. To me it is not so different. I want to spend my time 'productively' I tell my therapist, mom, boyfriend. To me that means making something meaningful. I want to be a master carpenter sometimes. The best of both worlds, art and function. I could make some kick ass chairs. My uncle made boxes for pet's ashes (he also made the boxes for his parents even though he died before them). I wonder if that work felt meaningful. Another one of my uncles would make custom wooden drawer organizers for the back of equine veterinarians' vans. They sound beautiful. Each one unique to the vet, here a place for the forceps, the acepromazine, here the ultrasound for seeing the little baby orbs, there the pink pentobarbital for my old man Quigley. ... Anyways, all that to say I am painfully aware of this being seen. I want it to be read, to be part of the club- but what if I come off insincere, trying to hard, or *cringe*? I don't have the bona fides they do. A quick google to make sure I spelled that right- "a person's honesty and sincerity of intention." I have never heard it used that way. I do have that then, at least.