Cream of wheat (since I made it upon request then the kid decided she wasn't hungry for breakfast) , coffee, coffee ... OoooOh, then fresh cherries from my pseudo-csa (I.e, I give my retired neighbor $15-20 to hit the local farmers market for me, since he goes anyway) What, pseudo csa included a pie ?!!? We talked about this yesterday!! Only fruits & veges! I'm dieting! I'm at my "scary" weight! Le sigh.

I felt like a cad returning the pie to him, my friendly neighbor. 

Leftover tortellini, handful of sunflower seeds. Iced Tea. Hot Tea (Fighting a head cold)

Fresh Corn on the cob! , leftover 1/2 a porkchop. Cherries, cherries cherries! And 2 fresh strawberries as I chopped up the delivered pint.

also, 1.1 miles on treadmill. And ate a few more cherries

hungry, and the interwebs keep showing me food posts tonight. Going to bed early.

Saturday was a Life Peak Experience.

Jenn and I went to a fundraiser at Laurel Hill Cemetery, their Soulstice party. It was basically a cocktails and nibbles party, and because the weather report was threatening rain, not that many people were there. We had a nice wander around the tombstones. The music was provided by DJ Scopitone, who plays early-20th-century music on two antique Victrolas (Victrolae?). They are no joke. You can get a fake victrola with a fancy horn that plays vinyl record albums, but these really depended on hand crank technology. The music echoed off of the tombstones like something in a dream. They had balloons holding glow-sticks hanging from the trees, and a little tent with a cocktail bar. It was lovely. After dark we went for a longer walk around the outside trail of the cemetery, where it was darkest. Looking down the hill, the sky was heavy and marbelled reddish, black trees silhouetted against it, and then the white spires of the obelisks silhouetted against that, and then fireflies were dancing in the air; it looked like a fairy city. and some jazz music and a nasal-voiced singer, echoing around from all directions. 

I have to start painting or drawing again. It might almost be worth going back with a camera that has a huge lens and a tripod and picking up as much light as I possibly can, but my memory of it might be better than the reality. When I got home, Vince was already asleep, and I tried to tell him about it. He seemed slightly lucid at the time. The next morning, he said, "Did you tell me that last night you were taking photographs on another planet? It was a city of white stalactites and black trees under a red sky, with little glowing creatures flying around?"  

I had my tarot cards read. the girl who did the reading was really sweet and cheerful. I said, "I've invested a lot of time, effort and money into my MFA, but I don't have a job and I'm disillusioned." she said that I'm definitely on my right career path, this is what I'm supposed to be doing, but I have to self-promote myself like a flame-thrower. She also said that more disappointment is coming, but that I would find balance soon. She also said that I have a big strong man to help me. which is good. 

Anyway, like I said: life peak experience. 

Sautee garlic, mushrooms and a little spinach in olive oil. Add 1/2 cup black beans, a half-teaspoon of cumin, a dash of salt and half a tablespoon of grape must.

What — no grape must in your kitchen? Use soy sauce, if you have one of those fancy "digestive systems" I've heard so much about, or a really swanky vinegar if you're like me.

Mash well with 1/4 cup of oats (quick oats will disappear better, but it doesn't really matter). Add a little liquid for easy workability but don't drown it.

Allow to sit for 10 minutes. Set a timer so you don't get impatient.

Make patties and pan-fry in 2 tablespoons of olive oil. Heat the oil as much as you dare (olive oil scorches easily; we're talking medium low here). Cover and pan-fry for 4 minutes on each side.

Add fixins to taste and serve.

Makes roughly 3 patties.

I get angry at the injustice in the world. At thoughtless people. At selfishness. At unmutual behaviour.

But I can't change people. I can't change the world. So all the anger just sits there and festers. "I'm always angry."

But constant anger is constant stress, and constant stress is very damaging. So I tamp it down. I say I don't care. I shrug it off.

But I can't seem to just diminish my response to anger. Everything else gets diminished, too. If I don't feel anger, I also don't feel joy, I don't feel love.

But that's depression. I have to choose between being angry or being depressed? 

How to be authentic and in the moment and emotionally responsive without burning up?

How do people do this?

New pages today. Six of notes & longhand writing, which became 5.5 typed. Pulled everything out & put it in a different environment, paid homage to BP's response to the Gulf Coast oil spill. 

New clothes washer is beautiful and it makes our clothes smell good. 

Mom tomorrow. Sleep now. 

This exists. 

Handiemail: Real Handwitten Words

And, they're hiring. At last, the day job I was born to work as a supplement to my fabulous lifestyle. Sadie Doyle would be proud. 

I completed my application, with the exception of a writing sample. I printed out their gridlines, put it under a piece of paper, and copied the sample text as faithfully as possible. It was a thing of beauty. 

I got all the way to the very end, and signed the sample letter with, 

"Handemal." 

According to their specs, this means I have to rewrite the whole thing from the beginning. 

Further hilarity: as I typed this, I spelled "faithfully" as "failthfully." 

Edited to add: Here's another thing. As I was copying the text, concentrating on my handwriting, and making sure my words and sentences fit within the line guides and so on, only checking to make sure everything matched (it's more like drawing, honestly), something sort of unlocked and woke up in my brain. It felt really good.  I haven't been able to find my magical purple journal for over a week now and it's driving me crazy.  My point is, long hand writing does something in terms of brain activity. 

I wrote a thing that was 1500 words and then I cut it down to 1000. 

My head is splitting. 

some of what I wrote depended on knowledge that I gleaned from this thing about hypertextual thinking. 

ow. 

I have no one to blame but myself. 

We all know that a) a person doesn't just get over being depressed, and b) a person can't stop mourning like flipping a switch. 

But, I'm hurting enough right now that I'm willing to try some strategies. I want to be the strong person that I need. Today I did a couple of things; wrote two thank-you emails, unloaded the dishwasher, put away some stuff. 

We're still mourning Bebe really hard. It feels like we're etherized, exhausted, wearing a hot, wet blanket. 

if you could do something for a depressed person, what would it be? I'll try it. (Non-pharmaceutical  ideas please. We're already taking prescribed meds.) 

Meanwhile, I've taken some melatonin (to shut my brain off) and I'm going to listen to mah storiez.  I've got The Girl On The Train, Disgraced, and The Alchemist. 

Thank you. 

OH. In hilarious news, I was accepted to a weekend-long artists' colony, which will only cost me a grand to attend, not including travel. 

When Archer was born, Jason gave me a necklace with a peridot in it (Archer's birthstone) and five tiny diamonds.  Before Hunter was born, I told Houser that I wanted him to take that necklace and combine it with a blue topaz, which was going to be Hunter's birthstone, because I never wanted to have to choose which necklace to wear.

Houser went to Beardsley and presented him with the original necklace and his new design.  He drew a front view and a side view, which Beardsley really appreciated because people design jewelry in their heads all the time, but rarely do they render it on paper with dimensions/proportions.  Both Beardsley and Houser actually went to the same art school, but not at the same time.

There are many styles of birthstone necklaces, a lot of them look like this:

Sorry for the image-heavy post, but for those who have not seen the typical stuff, I wanted to contrast it with my necklace, which is exactly what I wanted and one of my favorite pieces of jewelry.  This is it:

It looks better in person, but photographing jewelry is haaaard.

Hunter calls it "the me and Archer necklace".  

Anyway, I have no engagement ring, my wedding ring is pretty plain (by design, I always bang my hands into things and I wanted a ring I couldn't wreck) - this is the piece of jewelry that represents my marriage and my family more than any other.  I am very happy with it.

So I did this today. And then rode twelve miles home via Lindbergh Boulevard, for a total of 26 miles.

I didn't realize I'd covered so much ground until I recognized buildings on the outskirts of the airport.

The Heinz Wildlife Refuge (aka the Tinicum Wildlife Refuge) has many miles of hard-packed gravel trails in decent condition for cycling, even with cheap-hybrid-bike tires.

I was trying to follow the East Coast Greenway. There's lots of signage for it now, but you still get dropped off the face of the earth sometimes. I kept finding it though.

I want to pedal to my mom's house in Connecticut in the worst way. It's smack on the Greenway.

I don't have to take off work! I can just get up at 6am, pedal until it's too hot, and hide out in an AirBnB somewhere! We all need practice with remote working anyway. That's totally practical right? Hey it actually might be.