posted tagged with #Week-Notes

• hold on tight to this time, this place (week notes 020)

  I had a friend over one evening for pizza and card games — mostly Fan Tan and Blackjack, which are almost the only card games I like. My volleyball rec league started up again this week; I haven’t made time for physical exercise lately, and volleyball is a good commitment. I’d like to start running again soon too, but I’m nursing a minor foot injury that I’d like to see cleared up before I put too much stress on it. Thursday was the school spelling bee, which is both fun and heart-wrenching to watch.

  11 Jan 2025
• stop thinking a phone call or text is too complicated (week notes 019)

  I’m still reading Pride & Prejudice, but with the hubbub of the holidays, I haven’t made much progress. I’m excited about the next books in my pile, though, so I am determined to finish soon.

  4 Jan 2025
• using purell 'til my hands bleed and swell (week notes 18)

  Doing

  Unfortunately I haven’t been able to exercise much; partly, this is because I haven’t been making the time for it, but I also tweaked my right shoulder somehow and it’s been quite painful to use in every day tasks. Ring Fit is therefore off the table. The trouble is that I genuinely don’t know what I did to it! This week is my last before our holiday break, and I’m hoping to get back on the horse over the course of my 16 (!!) days off.

  22 Dec 2024
• sleepyhead 'cause all the fucking foxes kept me awake last night (week notes 017)

  Doing

  I bought a new domain name — I’m not going to post it just yet — but I’m considering switching this site over to it. I love esotericbullshit, but I’m not sure it’s the energy I want to put out there. It makes the URL a little hard to share. But it also feels remarkably stupid when I just moved this over from another domain (which is incidentally quite similar to the new one…).¹

  15 Dec 2024
• to find part of you still works is like a tiny victory (week notes 016)

  Doing

  • I went for a run with a good friend at an indoor track near me. The track itself is quite short, so the run is a little awkward, but it’s a super soft flooring which made the run easy on my joints. It’s nice to have a new run buddy, too!
  • Saturday I felt angry and sick and exhausted all day; I’d intended to go out and do holiday shopping but instead just rotted at home. I know I needed the rest, but seemingly everything put me in a bad mood. It’s maybe just PMS — I haven’t been good about tracking my cycle lately, though — or just the seasonal depression. It’s shit no matter what it is.

  Reading

  • Hometown Visit. I love reading folks who blog about their loves. It’s probably voyeuristic — I don’t know that it reflects well on me — but it makes me wish I had the courage to do the same.
  • Sandra Cisneros, Woman Hollering Creek. I’m waiting for Villette to come in, so I wanted something that would be easy to jump in and out of. This fits the bill; I love Mango Street dearly and this simply feels like more of it (albeit not following one character, but then, Cisneros’s stories all seem to co-exist).
  • 25 Wirecutter Journalists Can’t Be Wrong: How Owala Became an Official Water Bottle Pick. What a ridiculously self-important, self-absorbed article. I generally like and use Wirecutter; some of their recommendations are ridiculously decadent and detached from reality, but they are one of the few reliable online sources for product reviews and recommendations. I am all for an ode to something you love and that makes your life better, but this read not as “we tested and compared a lot of products” but more “we all have good taste and have this water bottle so it must be good, right?”

  Watching

  • Evermore: The Theme Park That Wasn’t - YouTube by Jenny Nicholson. I love Jenny’s videos but hadn’t watched this one yet; I dozed through portions but enjoyed it all the same.

  Playing

  • Pride & Prejudice The Board Game. My brother gifted this to me years ago and I’ve never found an opportunity to play it. A student of mine is listening to the audiobook of P&P on my recommendation and I told her about the board game; I thought I should play it first myself, so I convinced Joe to play with me.
  • Fabledom. This has been in my Steam wishlist for ages, and I wanted a cozy game to try to quell my Saturday mood. It’s OK. I enjoyed the time I put into it, but I don’t think I will go back to it. City builders tend to entertain me for a few hours, but then I reach the later points of the game (or it becomes a chore to manage everything) and get bored.

  Listening

  I’ve had three songs in rotation this week: “Clown Blood/Orpheus’ Bobbing Head” by Los Campesinos!, “up” by Pigthe, and “You Good? (In Medias Res)” by Proper.

  8 Dec 2024
• my voice moved hades so he extinguished the fire (week notes 015)

  Doing

  • Joe and I ran a Turkey Trot on Thanksgiving morning. My time was not good (40:38), but there was wet, heavy snow coming down, so I was mostly focused on not eating shit. I think mid-November might be my 5K cutoff. We otherwise stayed home for the holiday and spent some much needed time relaxing together.
  • With the holiday season upon us, this is usually around the time that I take a big trip out to a nearby mall to get gifts for everyone. I want to commit this year to shopping mostly (entirely?) from local small businesses or buying handmade and secondhand goods. I’m happy to live in a town with a great Main Street, and I want to stop dumping my money into corporations.
    • I did order a bunch of rechargeable batteries from Amazon for Black Friday, but that was the extent of my shopping.
  • I miss podcasting again. I’ve run a few podcasts over the years, which all petered out for various reasons, but I’m feeling the itch again. I don’t know what I’d podcast about, though, which runs contrary to popular logic: you should have something to say, not just the desire to say things. I love audio production and the sound of my own voice, though.
    • Maybe I record audio versions of my blog posts and turn that into a podcast? I want to write more, after all. I don’t think my week notes would be conducive to an audio format, but maybe my longer form writing (what little of it exists).
  • I bought a camera (Panasonic Lumix G7) on a bit of a whim. I film a lot of videos for my school, so I guess there’s professional utility in using something other than my phone, but I also want to get better about taking pictures to preserve memories.

  Watching

  • On Saturday, I felt sick and rotted on the couch and watched YouTube junkfood: mostly outsidexbox’s seven things videos and Macho Nacho console mod videos.
    • I don’t mod consoles. I like to tinker with electronics, but I’ve never soldered anything. Somehow, however, I find myself watching a lot of these sorts of videos. I think I admire the production value and Tito’s calm, measured approach.
  • I’m about done with Daria, but I haven’t watched the movies yet.

  Reading

  • Into the Wild by John Krakauer. As a kid, the film adaptation was on frequent rotation in my house; my mom often fixated on one movie and watched it over and over, and she was a big fan of the soundtrack as well. I’ve always wanted to read the book since, and I’m trying again to commit to reading more now that the start of school year frenzy has died down for me. I’m enjoying following McCandless’s story and don’t think Krakauer too effusive (though his biases are clear), but some of the tangents feel extraneous.
    • Finished on November 28. A humanizing and sympathetic account of a controversial figure. A few meandering chapters, but there are — in McCandless’s case especially — wrong turns taken in pursuit of truth, meaning, and beauty.
  • I’ve ordered Charlotte Brontë’s Villette through my local bookstore as an upcoming read on the recommendation of a student’s parent. I’m also interested in getting my hands on The Dead Father by David Barthelme after reading an excerpt in Into the Wild.

  Playing

  • Satisfactory. Just a few months before the pandemic, while I was in grad school, I fell deeply in love with Satisfactory and attempted in vain to explain to my literary and well-rounded colleagues that I was spending my free time balancing my iron production pipelines and converting from biomass energy to coal. I dipped my toe in a few more times after my mania but resolved to wait until 1.0 as many of my production lines would need to be seriously re-tooled. Joe suggested we start a co-op save this week and I am back and thriving.
    • We did get into a brief, heated conflict over manifold (my preference) versus balanced production, an argument all couples experience at some point in their relationship, I’m sure.
  • I played a little but more of Pokémon Crystal, but I’m at a point where I have to grind out levels to take on the next gym, which I’m supremely uninterested in doing. Maybe I’ll just hack my save.

  Listening

  • I downloaded the Satisfactory soundtrack and have had that on in the background — it’s very good. Otherwise, I’m mostly still listening to Rainbow Kitten Surprise.
  1 Dec 2024
• it's second nature to love you (week notes 014)

  first week notes in a while so some of this might not be strictly “this week”

  Doing

  • I turned 30. I had a big party with lots of friends — and I feel grateful to have so many folks who want to celebrate with me, including some who drove substantial distances. I still have a bunch of mixed up feelings about crossing this threshold, but I’m trying to remember the advice of a friend: it’s a gift to grow older.
  • This maybe belongs under a playing heading, but maybe not: I picked up Ring Fit Adventure for the first time since the pandemic. It’s getting to be too cold out to run, so I need an alternate fitness option. My most reliable gym buddy moved away, so I’m seeing if I can get Ring Fit to stick again. I am definitely in way better shape than when I was playing years ago; I would feel faint after 20-30 minutes in the game, but my first session was over 30 minutes and I felt fine (albeit sweaty) after. Turning 30 feels like an inflection point where I need to get serious about losing weight.
  • I also went to the gym for the first time in months to run on the treadmill. With snow season upon us, I need to transition to indoor running. I like it quite a bit less, but I don’t want to lose progress.
  • We had our first big snow of the season on Friday, which meant a (much-needed) lazy snow day at home.

  Watching

  • Daria, season four. I started rewatching Daria around Halloween because I dressed as her for the holiday. I still love it and I still hate Tom.
  • Friends at the Table’s Fields of Mistria streams. I’m not a FatT fan — actual play podcasts do not appeal to me at all — but Joe is, and I otherwise like a lot of the personalities on the show. Ali is probably my favorite and Joe and I love farming games like Mistria a whole lot.

  Playing

  • Pokémon Crystal Legacy. I had a hankering of Gen 2 nostalgia hit me, so I’ve been working my way through this ROM hack. I know a lot of my love for Gen 2 stems from it being my first Pokémon — and, indeed, one of the first games I really ever played — but I’m happy to report that it’s just as charming as I remember.

  Listening

  • Rainbow Kitten Surprise, RKS. Listened on the recommendation of a friend; I was concerned initially because I really didn’t like the first track (my words: “Big garage vibes. Like shit you listen to while you work on your motorcycle”), but after that hump, I really loved the album. My tops are “Cold Love,” “Wasted,” “All’s Well That Ends,” and “Lady Lie.” “Cold Love” in particular has really hung around in my head.
  24 Nov 2024
• spend my days running in circles (week notes 013)

  Doing

  • I presented to pre-service teachers at my alma mater with a colleague! Emotionally, I still feel like I was in their spot not that long ago — and then I remember I graduated over six years ago (and into a vastly different world and job market).
  • I’m finding myself using ellipses a lot and I do not like it. Is this growing old? Am I becoming a boomer?
  • I’m thinking about maintaining some kind of daily log — just simple, passing notes on what I did, what I thought about. Obsidian has this feature built in and it might be a good way to start. I like the idea of it being searchable and (theoretically) infinite in size, but I also want an excuse for another notebook.
    • I used to do daily reflections at the end of my work day. Slowly, those became every few days, then every week, then rarely. It was a good practice that I wish I had maintained, but there’s already so much I’m packing into my work day — and my goal in daily notes is to be more mindful about what I’m doing and thinking in my free time.
  • I attended my state-wide English teacher conference; this is something like my sixth or seventh time attending and I still find it valuable. I left with a lot of great ideas on how to diversify my practice and better empower my students.

  Watching

  • Percy Jackson and the Olympians. Joe and I have watched a few episodes. I liked the book fine, but the TV show has yet to grab me. It lacks Percy’s narrative voice (and personality), and while it’s good that Percy is played by an actual child, his pre-pubescent voice freaks me out.
  • Broad City. Joe and I watched a lot of Broad City early in our relationship, but we never finished it. We are starting it over from the beginning. Still funny!

  Listening

  • Charli XCX, Brat and it’s completely different but also still brat. Every re-release and new drop for brat innovates, co-exists, and complements. The features on this remix album feel like an ode to the remarkable original release and a statement of how pivotal the album has been personally and for the industry writ large. This version of “Everything is romantic” is as much a remix as an iteration; the original captures a single moment in beautiful, mimetic detail, and this one is another artist following the theme and form with their own experiences. brat is undoubtedly a project we’ll all be talking about when we discuss the music of the 2020s; I love witnessing its creation in real time.
    • For the haters, a friend of mine said the mixing was bad and that it “just sounds like noise.” I still like her (Charli and the friend, in that order¹).
  • Foxholes, Foxholes. I found “Alligator” while going through Daytrotter archives and loved it; the rest of the album is pleasant listening, but “Alligator” is the stand out.
  • Yung Lean, Stardust. I loved Yung Lean’s feature on Brat and it’s completely different but also still brat; imagine my surprise when I discovered that the esoteric bullshit (or so I thought) I was listening to ten+ years ago as a joke but not really went on to be a critically recognized artist. I thought it was just a weird fucking song.
    • Stardust is a much more polished and, dare I say, coherent and digestible² product than “Hurt”; I like it, but I’m not sure any of the songs will earn the coveted ⭐ on Plex.³ It’s music I’d have to be in a mood for — although the mumble-y nature of it makes it good background music while working. Maybe it just needs to sit with me a little more.

  ---

  1. just kidding :-) ↩︎

  20 Oct 2024
• what would it mean for us if i fell off this slide? (week notes 012)

  I’m doing a condensed post this week because I have been so busy with work!

  • Joe and I finished our rewatch of Gilmore Girls, and I’m happy to say that I still love the show. It goes downhill in season six and is borderline unwatchable in season seven, but I have such affection for all before that — especially the warm blanket, cozy autumn early seasons.

  13 Oct 2024
• but let's talk about you for a minute (week notes 011)

  I’m doing two weeks in one post. Last week I was dead sick and working too much so I didn’t assemble a post throughout the week as I normally do.

  6 Oct 2024