Perceived time scarcity seems somehow to be the order of the day. I might move these summaries to Monday permanently, but for the moment here is the brain dump:

• Major News Outlet said no to my second puzzle submission, just with a form letter. Some of the wording in the form letter ("this puzzle didn't emerge as one of our favorites") might mean that it made it to the final stage though, and got voted on by the team of editors? It's amusing. These crossword rejections are written in code that looks like English, and can mean something precise, just like performance-related wording at work used to be. Anyway, I have two more in progress with two different collaborators, and am going to re-submit that last one to a different outlet just to get practice.


• Spent most of Friday making a protest sign for No Kings protests, then a good chunk of Saturday carrying said sign. I went to the really big one with the bug and another friend, dressed inconspicuously; Perse dressed up in an elaborate fairy costume and held a sign, at a smaller protest, saying "Faeries against Fascism". Hilarious... we have a bit of a Wednesday/Enid vibe going on. But the protest itself was good, a cheerful and chill affair. I'm glad I turned out to be counted.


• Finally had a long date with my squirrel. I'm not even sure when we last had a sleepover -- had it been four weeks? He is super overscheduled now and struggling to make time for me, but the snuggles were good and I helped him set up his new pullup bar from BaseBlocks.


• Bug got his guided cortisone shot for his frozen shoulder, on Thursday, and says it's feeling a little better! Very happy about that. He'll have PT on Monday and then we'll know more about how it's responding.


• Backbends and handstands continue to be awesome. I felt a huge back release and further range of motion this week when doing cobra pose (on a wedge) and holding a weight over my head, where the weight ACTUALLY FINALLY started helping me deeper into the pose. I also had a giant epiphany about anatomy in handstands that, so far, when I explain to other people is resulting in a massive "so what". Therefore, I won't attempt it here. I think doing it justice requires an animated video or at least a several-page comic.


• The major disappointment, yet again, was failing to close on a condo. And indeed, I also found out that the insurance quote I had for it wouldn't be honored if I rented to non-students, which in this area is a real no-go -- and also WTF, I'm shocked that it's legal for them to do that. I know it's illegal for me to evict someone for quitting their job and starting classes mid-lease, and also why are we discriminating explicitly against people who are seeking education? I did a lot of swearing and then found more expensive insurance. And still the town issues no certificate. I did a bunch of hurry-up-and-wait regarding closing on Tuesday, no, Friday, no, I guess it'll be next week. I really freaking hope it will be next week.


• Really wonderful afternoon wandering Harvard Square with a sparkly friend who was visiting from Philadelphia. We got together for lunch, initially, but then crawled three bookstores and one more cafe. I regret nothing.


• Also, nice acro practice session with visiting base the Monk. This has happened twice now, and it's really startling how much more like home his hands feel than my recently-usual base (who I really like, but haven't yet spent six years practicing with). Looks like I won't easily be able to visit him in turn, but one of these months for sure.


• I played a bunch more Blue Prince. I think that once I get another real house I'll need to find a stopping point on that; most people I know haven't 100%ed it. But not quite yet.

It's a sleepy sleepy Monday, which it probably is for a lot of people because a) it's a holiday and b) we are having a nor'easter here, which means rainfall. Many cozy feelings are thereby created.

Weird number of postponements and rejections this week:

• Major News Outlet said no to my first crossword puzzle submission, although they did it in the nicest way possible. Not a form letter. They gave real feedback about what they liked and didn't, and encouraged me to try again. Joke's on them, another is already in their queue and I have two more in progress with different collaborators. One of which made a ton of progress this week!


• I was supposed to meet with my financial advisor. It got postponed, but in preparation for that I did my numbers for the year so far and looked harder, especially, at my latest six months of spending. Insert some annoyance, here, with my budgeting program... but I fixed things up until I believe the data, and the good news is that I'm spending less this year than I have any year since 2021. Even with all the circus lessons. This stands in contrast to the returns from the market so far, which don't feel real or make sense to me at all.


• I was supposed to close on my stupid new condo tomorrow. Guess what got delayed again. This time it's most proximally the town's fault. *shrug* At least other people (Unit 2 buyers in the same building) are providing urgency on it now; they can wake me up when the sale is actually happening.

Some other happenings:

• It's been... six months since I retired? I think I'm planning to do a 6-month update post on LinkedIn, but my biggest lesson is that six months aren't enough. I never expected it to be, but now I know it's not, and that's conceptually a little worrisome. The larger milieu of politics, finance and tech seems messed up, and apparently all I can manage is dropping out and playing dead.


• My neighbor suddenly got rid of all the ivy that used to cover our front yard! I knew she wanted to pull it back from the house, but didn't realize she was going to remove ALL of it until it was already done. I was startled. But I also remembered telling her to do what she wanted in the front, and the time (at my last address) that I was trimming hedges only to have the older woman upstairs yell at me in the street. So I simply expressed mild surprise. Maybe it was time for a change anyway.


• I had coffee with my walkover coach, who is pregnant with a donor egg, and talked her through some of how it went with me and Birdie and E&V. I need to do more follow-up on that since, weirdly, E is going to be in town next week, and probably my coach would rather talk to the egg recipient than the donor.


• Went climbing with jadia, which was super fun except when I confidently failed the belay test by engaging my circus rope-pulling circuits (in circus you NEVER let go of a rope entirely but it is considered OK for it to slide through one's hands; in rock climbing it's the opposite; and both endeavors consider it a significant safety concern). This spun off a conversation on a Discord server I'm on, in which apparently belay technique maybe has also changed in the last 10 years, but my particular cross-wiring was almost certainly circus. We were prepared to fall back to the auto-belay routes which were really fun, and I also got to be belayed on a nasty no-hands-section climb that made my legs all shaky.


• More social: dinner with a bunch of Zillianaires, which... was honestly pretty exhausting. Overall positive, but way out in the boonies in a house that made me slightly twitchy.


• Backbend progress -- both a contortion class and a walkover class in which I did New Things and my body graciously put up with it. I've been working out twice a day, most days this week, which is on the high side.... but there's a lot of joy happening and I'm not injured, so I got a tub of creatine and am going to carry on as long as coach availability is this good. There'll be downtime later.
  

It's a lot, right? The time I used to spend on "work" has exploded into a lot of smaller things, and I know that what is important can get lost in here's the pile of random shit that happened. But if nothing else, this is true to my experience too. I think life is good. I miss my squirrel, who's been away for two weekends running, but that will end soon.

Another week in (what is rapidly shaping up into) the best year of my life. I want to do more every day than I can do... but a lot of that is "more nothing!" or "more video game", with only a few days actually packed too full of things like lessons and social time. So, not actually very stressful. It shows up, though, in things like yet another Monday post from me when I theoretically summarize the week on Sundays. :)

Creative stuff: I have a good start on a new crossword puzzle, a collaboration with someone new to me. She's also a female techie, and she gave me the gentle nudge I needed to install a Python environment and get some scripting working in order to find good theme words. I'm fairly sure the concept is original, so if we can just fill the grid cleanly I have a good feeling about it.

Spousal goodness: heisenbug has a diagnosis for his hurt shoulder, as well as a new video out on YouTube! I feel a certain need to take advantage of our COBRA'd health insurance while we still have it, and the shoulder had gotten pretty bad. Luckily, it's frozen shoulder and probably won't require surgery.

My squirrel was away in NYC this weekend and I somehow had a great weekend anyway; I filled it up with a zine fest, and taking outdoor handstand photos for October (thank you apfelsingail for the fine camera work), and hanging with a work-friend (who gave me a lot of cat food and litter because her cat just died). We went thrifting, too, and I managed to sell five or six pieces and buy a nice new dress with the proceeds, for a net reduction in clothing.

I had a surprisingly good talk with my mom. She and I and Birdie are all 24 years apart, and Birdie is 24, which means... I am the same age my mom was when she left my dad, and Birdie is just barely older than I was when I donated eggs in support of her conception. These are strange thoughts, strange truths to sit with. My mom thinks that her husband, my step dad, is basically dying and that it's all borrowed time right now. But we also talked about: hey, we're both awfully grown-up by now, shouldn't we just be friends at this point? So that was nice. And somewhat increases the odds of a trip to Oregon in the next few months.

I'm continuing to play Blue Prince, with occasional amused nudges from motyl and a whole lot of obsessing over imaginary houses. In between runs I have been continuing to organize my real house. And my condo purchase, which has been in the corner facing the wall and thinking about its mistakes, seems to still be on for the 14th, so I may as well play as much as I can.

And as a final note -- it's freaking 85 degrees here in the Boston area on October 6th! What the hell! I would be excited for fall vibes if there were any. I would be excited to go cozy and fall into hibernation / soup / knitting / reading mode for winter if there were any hint of it. But here we are and the knitting must wait.