Reading

Entry tags:

venting

Venting

A former co-worker called me last week. We were...work friends. We never socialized outside of work.
She left the company before I did and moved to Ohio; she'd call me occasionally to talk.

She's one of those people who 1) thinks she's knows everything and 2) makes everything about her. The last time she called before this most recent one was probably 18 months ago. She asked so I was trying to tell her about everything I was going through with my father. Her response was to tell me not to trust doctors and do some woo-woo shit. Then going on about how terrible her life is. Then she started in on how she wanted to move back up here and she needed people to help her.

This time I told her dad had passed. She started with how she knows how hard that is. Her mother died (so did mine). Her brother died (so did mine). Then she started with how the landlord and other tenants were harassing her. Playing loud music ALL THE TIME (except for when she was on he phone with me.) And somehow causing electro-magnetic interference that destroyed her phone and that she could feel and measure. Again she told me how she wanted to move back and needed help. I basically just hmm'd in response to everything she said.

She's called twice more. First early Monday morning (I didn't answer) asking me to call someone in government to help her. How I, in MA, was going to do that, I don't know, considering I only know she lives in Ohio somewhere. And again a half hour ago (didn't answer) telling me she was being evicted. The other tenants were sending electrical shocks through the floor. She needed help to move. She has two kids in their early to mid twenties. Her oldest got married and moved to Finland. The other one lives with her.

I think she thinks I'll say "Hey, no problem. I'll help you move and you can stay with me." Nope. Ain't gonna happen. I can't block her because the phone number she has for me is a landline. Honestly it sounds likes she's in the middle of a mental health crisis. But there's really not much I can do about that.
/venting

Entry tags:

What I'm Doing Wednesday

books
Astrology for Yourself: How to Understand And Interpret Your Own Birth Chart by Demetra George, Douglas Bloch MA. Rev 2006. A bit outdated in terms of social examples, but the basics are sound.

not quite finished with: Chiron and the Healing Journey: An Astrological and Psychological Perspective by Melanie Reinhart. 2009 ed. Super creepy case studies, esp Jonestown, pre-De Klerk South Africa.

yarning
Didn't go to yarn group, though I was dressed, packed up, and ready to leave. I just couldn't get myself to get into the car and go. Or to work on the languishing bunnies on my own. It's true that crochet still hurts my shoulder and I haven't kept up my PT for it, but seeing people in person again would have been nice. And good for me.

( healthcrap )

fandom
Interview with the Vampire S3 is filming, and my tumblr dash is full of pics. It's delightful. I watched Murderbot through 1.6 & haven't yet caught up with the most recent 2 eps. So excited, though, to read that Martha Wells is polishing the final edits on the new Murderbot novella!

astrology
I'm studying hard, and it feels really good to be learning (and relearning) so much again.

#resist
July 4: Independence Day Boycott/Free America Protest/Weekend of Community Events
July 17: Good Trouble Lives On Day of Action (in honor of John Lewis, who died 7/17/2000)

I hope all of y'all are doing well & we US-ians have a happy Fourth of July weekend! If you go to a protest/march, please be safe! <333

Entry tags:

update

Update Time

Reading: Maybe it's a winter-based desire for comfort reads, but if it's not Murderbot or Rivers of London, it's not holding my attention right now. I have read the first chapter of The iron will of Genie Lo, which is now staring mournfully at me from the corner of my desk, after having had it's loan renewed for the second time. /o\ I did start listening to Robbery Under Arms - a classic Australian novel about bushranger Captain Starlight - and while it's fascinating it's very "If I'd just done the sensible thing at this point then I wouldn't be in jail waiting to hang", which gets a little repetitive. I'm still waiting on </>Our Lady of Mysterious Ailments, the second book in the Edinburgh Nights series by T.L. Huchu, which my account tells me I requested as a purchase 12 months ago. The first book in the series was very good!

Watching: Dude has been making me watch Stranger Things. It's not usually my kind of thing, but I quite enjoyed season 2 when we watched it...over a year ago? We watched the first ep of season 3 a week ago and I said, "Who are these people and why are they like that?" so we skipped to the finale, which was satisfactory. The first couple of eps of season 4 are verging on too much horror for me, despite the arrival of Eddie.

Now he is making me watch ALL the Thor movies, including the bonus material. The first one is a fun romp. The second one wasn't as bad as I'd been led to believe. The Thor/Loki moments were golden, and Stellan Skarsgård is great. I felt sorry for Christopher Eccleston, as I think they cut his best moments. The next two will be rewatches.

Gaming: I bought a copy of Rayman Origins on GOG and have been happily slogging my way through the Jibberish Jungle. I'm stalled out on my other games as I seem to keep making the same mistakes. I guess what I need is to put more of my limited time into them. :-/

Other stuff: I have five different knitting projects sitting around. I should maybe finish the baby cardigan before my grand-nephew outgrows it, which means my friend's shawl will probably be ready for next winter. I have done a tiny bit of spinning, just to test what my shoulder can handle, but it's a test project in some boring leftover fibre so I'm not strongly motivated to work on it. I'm about half way through a jigsaw of a village on Santorini, which is a lovely warm contrast to the weather.

Life stuff: Work is quieter, as exams are over and results for the semester have been approved. We can take a little bit of a breather before getting ready for next semester. At home, we're planning to replace our ducted gas heating with reverse cycle air conditioning. It also means decommissioning our evaporative cooling which I'm not really happy about, but we need to cut our gas usage and this seems to be the only option. We're hoping to get a bit of rain this week.

Entry tags:

flowers,
gardening

Flowers

From my garden.

( flowers )

Entry tags:

What I'm Doing Wednesday

( books (Abulafia, Greer, Tesh, Edington, Arroyo) )

astrology
I'm refreshing my knowledge. I used to be GOOD at it, and it's a thing I don't have to be healthy to do. I don't have to keep normal office hours. The trouble is most of my books are paper and reading paper is a migraine trigger. So it's slow going.

dirt
The thrips are srsly going after the rattlesnake beans, and it's making me crazy. Interestingly, they're less fond of the ornamentals. The bougainvillea sent up a new shoot that is thick enough to propagate, so I'm planning to do that in a week or two. The struggling spider plant is recovering. The teeny tiny leaf of the string of turtles has grown a nearly microscopic leaflet and a root inside its rooting bag of sphag & perlite. Maybe one day it'll be a real plant!

healthcrap
Skin clinic tomorrow. Cancelled botox for migraines on Monday, due to bureaucratic shenanigans I'm partly responsible for. Continuing to be in bed for 12 hours and sleep on and off for 7-9 of them. Little REM, little deep sleep, little rest, all thanks to the fibro. I've had PTSD triggers happening for the past week or more, I realized, which is getting me down. Good that I identified it, though, so at least I can point to some reasons for being a ball of anxiety and avoidance

yarning
I went to yarn group Sunday, go me, and had a nice time. I still feel little impetus to crochet or do anything else creative. I wish I did.

food
Started taking a big kid dose of a children's multivitamin in hopes of feeling better, and I do! I bought a ton of groceries after only doing one trip last month. The prices have gone up significantly, grrr. But now I have healthy options that aren't too hard to cook and will hopefully not find myself living on trail mix again...even though I bought fixings for that, too. Made mujadara again and upped the lentil to rice ratio. Again used 2 giant sweet onions bc anything less isn't near enough.

#resist
June 27: Stonewall Anniversary Protest
June 24 to 30: McDonald’s Boycott
July 4: Independence Day Boycott/Free America Protest/Weekend of Community Events
July 17: Good Trouble Lives On Day of Action (in honor of John Lewis, who died 7/17/2000)

(no subject)

An Iranian Journey

Someone posted this on tumblr and I wanted to share it with you. We're all just people trying to live our lives despite the whims of our rulers.

Entry tags:

chris evans,
movie

Materialists

I went to see Materialists this afternoon. Partly to get away from this hideous heat though I was planning on seeing it in any event. It got me thinking that the last time I actually went to the theater to see a movie it was Knives Out. Call it the Evans effect. 😀

I enjoyed it quite a bit. It's a decent rom-com that definitely has something to say about dating and "checking all the boxes."

The acting was good but Dakota Johnson somehow managed to not have much chemistry with either Pedro Pascal or Chris Evans imho.

Chris Evans looks especially soft and huggable in it.