I love how brie, portioned and wrapped in plastic and saved in the fridge, will grow more mould across the newly exposed portions of cheese under the plastic.

​​​​​​​It's alive!

d is doing regimens out of the Nike app on their phone; there's an enormous variety of plans from beginner to athelete, with some equipment or none, routines targeting any or multiple muscle groups or activities, and specific moves with video demos of each one. It's an impressive system, which costs nothing, and isn't demanding of personal data beyond an email address.

It almost makes me want to buy a pair of shoes just to say thanks.

I'm composing my own workouts based on routines from the Nike repertoire and my own desires, as some of my limitations are harder to avoid (like, no lateral knee strain -- I guess this is what braces are for?).

We graduated to this from the limits of a professionally created set of three workouts d had made for themself last year; we'd extended the routine as far as we could and needed more challenge. 

Which we did because we moved into a building that had a dedicated gym space.

We'd done 7 minute workout routines, as well as 100 burpee challenges, in prior years when we had the house, but they didn't really stick for long.

Now I've got a watch that nags me when I sit for too long, and says ping when I do enough exercise or move actively, so there's a little gamification which I already feel taking effect.  I get 3 minutes of "workout" when I climb the 9 flights of stairs from the basement.  I also get credit for walking  briskly on errands. It also tells me about my heart rate, which is resting around 60, and confirms that I have the occasional premature ventricular contraction (PVC), which is harmless.

We walk almost everywhere in this city, and when we don't have time to walk or the weather is ass, there's the TTC. The motorcycles are just getting dusty and I don't think I can justify keeping them. 

Rambling, I guess.

ETA --

Tomorrow is Toronto's big Climate Strike/March. We'll be starting at Queen's Park (provincial capital) and I am expecting it will be truly frigging epic in size. I dyed my hair and beard last night. A dark red with tints of blue. Not my eyebrows though. Christ no, I like my vision.

In shittier news -- Saturday the fash have promised to march up Church street right through the Village, which is not going to go well. Every queer organization has called up people to non-violently march in opposition and it will probably be at least 10-1 if not much higher. I'd be surprised if there wasn't just a human wall on Church street somewhere keeping them from getting farther than Alexander St.  Anyway, I'll be joining that party, too, though probably just wearing earplugs and holding a sign. We have plenty of black-bloc trained people who will engage to keep vulnerable folks safe if needed. 

My dad sent me YouTube videos about how superintelligent AI is going to destroy us or something, and how Elon Musk says we have to get off this planet if we're going to preserve humanity.  I sent the following in response:

I’m far less worried about superintelligent AI than about regular old AI, or as it should be called, Machine Learning, that’s used to disguise the human biases that went into creating and training it and thereby used to perpetuate systems of injustice around the world.  You can ask a person why they made a decision and they may answer, but a ML model is almost completely opaque once it’s been trained.

That’s what I’m worried about: Facebook and YouTube turning people into fascists through machine learning that optimizes engagement with a screen rather than empathy with their fellow humans.  

That’s the real problem of AI.  It’s not a hardware problem, it’s not a software problem, it’s a problem of politics; with business being allowed to set the agenda of what is right and normal.

As for Elon Musk — What if Tom Swift, but a megalomaniac?   Like Amazon guy Jeff Bezos, another one of the richest men in the world, who simply can’t fathom how he could possibly spend all his money — on a planet full of climate change, increasing social inequity, and the re-emergence of fascism, and decides to build rockets instead.  

Fuck ‘em.  

If you have power, you should use it to help those less fortunate.  Noblesse oblige — nobility obliges. "Noblesse oblige is a French expression used in English. It translates as "nobility obliges" and denotes the concept that nobility extends beyond mere entitlements and requires the person who holds such a status to fulfill social responsibilities.”

No one does anything alone, we all stand on the shoulders of those who came before us, and if we’re so lucky we get a head start due to wealth or intelligence or race or gender or what country we’re born in, we owe those around us an outstretched hand to help them along. 

That’s the real strength of humanity.  

Not clever white boys who launch sports cars into space for a laugh.

Cheers!

Sunday mornings we clean. d has taken on kitchen duties, while I do bathrooms, K sweeps thoroughly, then I damp mop. One or another of us will occasionally go around and dust something, or clean light switches, door jambs, handles, under the oven, whatever sticks out as needing attention. It's a ritual. With the number of users and size of our place, a week is about how long it takes for grime/scum to become visible and the cat hair to start drifting out from the corners. Of course, there's spot cleaning when a cat horks, and frequent counter wipedowns and cutting board swaps. But this level of effort and cleanliness works for us.

Sundays are also pickle inspection, and they're doing fine. I pulled out an XTRA MUSTARD and gave it to d to test, and they said "it's got a long way to go, but I can see where it's going."  I ate the rest: it's got a nice flavour on it but needs more bite. So that's a month of fermentation down.

I bought a 2l jar of Bick's pickles at costco, mostly for the jar, for later use with our own pickles. 

I'm having one of these store-bought pickles with lunch. Man, these are some weak-ass pickles. Decently crispy but they just don't taste like much of anything. I like a pickle that will fight back. Like if you drew a mascot for the kind of pickles I like, it would be like one of those "fighting Irish" things but it would be a pickle with a mean jaw, furrowed brow and angrily cocked hat. 

Fortunately, the pickles we're making are all still coming along just fine. About half of the bins have settled down into just fermentation, the other half still have a bit of residual nonsense on the surface to be spooned off. I believe we're through most of the dangerous period where infection might have set in so confidence is pretty high that they'll all turn out just fine. 

I'll keep checking them every week or so and we'll do an initial taste test at the beginning of October. (Sorry, no photos, they look the same as last week.) 

A local store was having a sale on Roma tomatos, $7 for a 25lbs, half bushel. Like, fuck yeah. d went out with the wagon. Except they had none. Produce guy says when they put them out on the floor, they disappear right away. Well, of course! 

Other store was having red peppers for $8 also for a half bushel. Which, holy shit. So, okay, fine, we can do that. d brought home a box and cored them and cut them up into half inch strips and we put them in the dehydrator, where they'll sit on the balcony overnight at 130F. And in the morning they'll be crisp.  

Yes, a dehydrator is a thing we have! The tomatoes would have gone into the dehydrator too, sliced into 1/2" thick discs. Maybe we'll get lucky tomorrow. We forgot pictures. Maybe pictures of the dried peppers tomorrow.

Our small green children are doing fine. 

We’ll look in on them again next week!

The usual scum and mouldy bits of detritus on the surface of the water to spoon away. The mould is aerobic, that's why you have to submerge the pickles, so only the anaerobic fermentation bacteria can eat them. A few bins needed topping up water. A couple had white snowflake colonies instead of the usual green mold. I dunno what that is, but I just spoon some of it out and make sure the pickles are underwater.

So far so good.

It's been a crap couple of days. Breakthrough anxiety, indecisiveness, gloom, and exhaustion. Coupled with having my studio in pieces pending a trip to IKEA for some shelves for a new workstation, so there's no art happening.

I've given myself permission to take the day off of feeling bad about not doing anything hugely productive (like go to IKEA alone on transit to bring shelves home on a dolly) so maybe I can reset energy levels and expectations. 

High functioning but sometimes crash hard.

Yes, I've been taking my meds. I still think my dose is right because some days I feel over medicated and other days I have crashes so it's probably a good balance overall? Though I will probably talk to my doctor about being able to self regulate between 10mg and 20mg when I next see her. I think I have the self awareness (and the daily mood log habit) to manage my dose a little. We'll see.

I did a lot of volunteering with the SummerWorks performance festival earlier in the week and at the end of last week and it was great fun and I got a lot of positive feedback. But also it was pretty exhausting, mostly standing, and with all the walking to/from (about 4km each way). So there's a plausible reason for the exhaustion. 

Still, it sucks to wake up and have breakfast and want to go right back to bed. Instead I'm having coffee, typing this, and probably read or game later.

Self care.

Eight bins.