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I continue to be having a LAKE VACATION and today I even went into the lake a bit!

Lake was a late-afternoon plan, and I only made it in to about the tops of my thighs, just because it was...comfortable enough outside, and also the water was quite cold. I had a nice conversation hanging with Cameron and discussing our respective indifference to swimming and other nice things. It was good to be able to cool my body by sticking my feet into the water, and I quite preferred it to being inside with the AC, which tends to be too cold for my poor lizard body.

(I am extremely cold-blooded --I get cold quite easily, and am most comfortable at an indoor temperature of probably 78ish, which no one is ever willing to set their houses at. It means this heat wave is hitting me less badly than many people, and I am very grateful for that. It also means I'm about to go put on my flannel, because bare arms are simply much too chilly for the indoors.)

Oo, or I could write my words outside! That is a good plan too!

(I got distracted having a nice chat with grandpa John, about teaching and acceleration and other things. Being pro-vocational schools! The usual. I am so proud of my school district for all the good it's doing, even though I'm exhausted by many of the things they are failing at.)

The other big thing we did today was going to the Candy Store, which was a very nice sort of adventure! We're on touristy sort of lake, so visiting some touristy sorts of shops is lovely, and gave me a chance to get my mother some vintage-style candy she would be excited about. It was also fun to spend time with just the cousins-batch! It's neat to be part of an inter-generational sort of adventure (currently Grandma Judy and Karen(Tues and Cameron's mom) are working on the crossword with other people's help, and the eight of us who are awake are curled around the table snarking each other and helping occasionally. ) but it's especially fun to just hang out with the other "kids".

It should maybe be weirder that I, at age nearly 36, am sitting so comfortably at the kids' table, but let's be real, I absolutely do not feel as though I am a Grown-Up and never have, despite the fact that I am a firm believer in Growing Up Is Good.

I don't really have much else to write about --peaceful lake vacations are good for the soul healing a bit, and curing burn-out but not exactly full of adventures. We went on a walk and saw a bat? We're going to eat strawberry shortcake? We finished a quite neat puzzle and then rearranged it and finished it again? Things are all pretty lovely.

Please stay cool, in both the "physical" and the "don't become a fascist" sorts of way.

~Sor

MOOP!

(no subject)

I am at Keuka!

This is one of the fingerlakes in upstate New York. Tuesday's extended family has been going out to hang out in a rental cabin on the lake for a week or two every summer for basically forever. This year I got dragged along, which is quite exciting!

We arrived yesterday after about twelve total hours of varying kinds of travel, which was...a lot. It would've been better if Tuesday and I could've managed to sit together on the trains but it turns out both the Northeast Corridor and the Vermonter are _super_ crowded always, and if you don't get on them at the terminii you're fucked. But we made it! We settled in a bit and got a brief tour and I had a very good part of my evening where I just wandered outside and lay on the dock and stared at the stars for a tick. Very very good!

Today was officially day 1/3 of my ~lake vacation~ a thing I've basically never done in my life. I have read books! (parts of three different, so yes, there will be a medialog post again soon). I have worked on a puzzle! I have mostly stayed out of the way while people made dinner! I have eaten dinner!!!

And there are two more days of this? I think I can probably manage that. Just...lots of chatting with Tuesday's family, and occasionally reading books or entertaining myself. Marvelous? There ought to be swimming at some point, but most of this afternoon was spent going to the grocery store in a very disorganized little hoard. It was jolly though, and there was a bit in the middle where I was just in a marvelous mood. Feral almost --wild creature released in the grocery store with no particular agenda (because Tuesday and I got to the grock before Karen and Cameron, due to shop shenanigans). Very nice adventure!

Other plans might include going a bit kayaking, or doing some doodling, or maybe actually working on the ESCape lessons I'm teaching in, uh, a week. On Thursday, Cameron and I are going to drive down to Bal'more, since that's where they live and where mom can easily pick me up. I'll be in Maryland for an _extremely_ blitz visit until mom and Robin and I drive back up to Boston and then to...ESCAPE! I'm excited for it!

In other particularly good news, my union ratified its contract today! YAYYY!!! Best damn district in the state woot woot!

I hope you are finding whatever it is you need this week. And not too much heat.

~Sor

MOOP!

Entry tags:

firsts

Isolations and happenings

Happenings:

The bug is back from Oregon; his mom remains in the hospital, or more accurately is back in the hospital, with pneumonia and two small strokes (?) having followed her hip surgery. Prognosis is cautiously optimistic but it may take her a while to get home again. In the meantime, the bug seems to have picked up something on his return travels. We are quiet today.

I have done rather a lot of circus since last time. Handstands, a semi-private contortion lesson with another Zillian person who is apparently twenty years younger than me, acro practice, more acro practice.

Finished a drawing lesson. I don't like coffee cups anymore; they are annoying to draw. Screw you, coffee cups. Mushrooms were much better.

Spent a fair bit of Saturday buying, transporting and installing air conditioner units for tenants. My co-landlords were all having Moments, and it really fit in pretty well around Porchfest, anyway, for me to take care of most of it. Then yes, also the bug played Porchfest, in the backyard of the same house because everything happens at Blue-Green Street now, and I sat between friends and felt relaxed and happy.

Did I mention Moments? Yeah, Perse and her other boyfriend have broken up, creating a Disturbance in the Polycular Force. (Not very long ago the four of us usually ate Tuesday dinner together, so this does affect me... it kind of sounds far away from me but it really isn't.) Date nights are changing around, and my squirrel-family is losing their nice convenient poly-symmetry. This is gonna be a trip... in the meantime, my Sunday night date moved to Sunday morning and damn, Henrietta's Table is really delicious.

I played with Cursor and Sonnet on Sunday morning, which means vibe coding, and it was very quick and very infuriating. I'm almost certainly going to do more of it, as my new crossword puzzle hobby drags me further into futzing with word lists.

On the macro level, there's a vicious heat wave here (I'm worried about the squirrels) and uh, the US has attacked Iran nuclear facilities. I'm reading that Iran has (or had?) an underground enrichment facility that only the US had the right plane and the right bomb to knock out, and I get why the world might be better off without an Iranian nuclear state... and this is still queasy-making.

I'm enchanted, at the moment, by thoughts of conscious flexibility and looseness. Twice in the last week I've learned very physically that there can be more (and easier!) motion of one part of the body when there's part that's held firm and part that is loose and able to move freely. And I'm messing around with this as a metaphor, as my schedule loosens and life flows along. This has been my problem with handstands, and handstand jumps, all along -- I actually have to be disconnected through a certain part of my body in order to let my hips rise. Tiny Coach got me to jump onto a yoga block taller than I ever have before by having me hold my arms firm, relax the rest, and jump repeatedly (boing, boing, boing) while allowing my hips to actually move with the momentum of the jump..... after we did that, I went and did hand-to-hands with my base and we had more success, both on Friday and on Sunday, with that too. I'm talking like several jumps to balance in a row on both days. We still seem to need a big pile of safety mats in front of us but they're not actually doing anything, they're just there. So yeah, isolations. Where to hold firm, and where to be chill and adaptable while taking in momentum from the world or from others, currently is a fascinating lens on the puzzle of how to plan a life.

(no subject)

Today was my third pride! I am realizing I never got around to posting all the bits from my second pride, last weekend, so let's do that first:

( here are the notes from Boston pride a week ago, written in a series of texts )

***

Today was Providence Pride! It was a very different experience from Boston Pride, but still really wonderful and valuable! The biggest differences were a) the weather was the _polar opposite_ and I had to worry about heatstroke instead of my fingers going numb and b) I was attending with people instead of alone.

The latter made it much less of a quasi-spiritual experience. I only cried once, and only a very little bit, not proper sobbing --it was when I found the Mama Dragons group, who had a big sign at their booth that read "Fight like a MOTHER for trans rights". They are such a good group! Fuck yeah!

I think the real thing is that when I am with other people I am a somewhat different person than when I'm alone. I'm compelled to be more stable, which is mostly a good thing, but also just...I dunno. I have to be around only people I feel very safe around in order to be my proper weirdest, or I have to be around total strangers who I will never meet again.

But the people I were with were so good! Tuesday and I went to pride together, and it was very fun to go to A Queer Event as a unit. SamSam was passing through on their own adventures, so we found them soon after we arrived and the three of us spent about fifteen minutes sitting in some cozy shade behind a bush, which was almost pleasant weather-wise. After they went off on their next bit of biking, Tuesday and I met up with a friend of kers called Chris who ke knows through Tech House and Puzzling.

Tuesday and Chris and I spent most of the afternoon together --probably from like 3 until they had to catch a train at nearly 8. We toured some booths, ate from some food trucks, sat in the shade, and toured more booths. I think by the end of it we had probably seen all the booths at the little pride fair, although it was laid out a little roundabout in a way that might've caused us to miss a few. I got some nice bits of swag, including a very explicitly queer patch from GSSNE (Girl Scouts Southeastern New England) and an even better rainbow fan than the one I got last week (this one has PoC and trans stripes, the other just has the core six).

Chris turned out to be very fun to talk to, and we definitely had a few moments of "oof, are you me?!" as we chatted about various forms of sluttery and other fun. It was also neat to get to *chinhands* as they shared various forms of college drama with Tuesday, and I could learn some secret scandals from my partner's life before me. I am a simple man with simple pleasures!

Attending the fair was lovely, but as mentioned it was _brutal_ hot and bright out. I realized eventually that part of the problem was that my Very Cute Sunglasses are just slightly off prescription-wise from my regular sunglasses --not enough to be an immediate problem, but if I am wearing them for five hours straight, it starts to make my body unhappy. I went in the mist tent for a bit to cool down, and then we sat somewhere shaded enough that I could swap out for my regular glasses and take an ibuprofen, all of which helped. On the plus side, neither Tuesday nor I appear to have any sunburn! We brought our own sunscreen, but I did heartily approve of the multiple (mostly mom-like) people at the event who had bottles of their own that they were offering to everyone.

Chris had to catch a train, so they couldn't join me and Tuesday for the parade, which happens after the fair in PVD. We missed the very beginning, but caught most of it, and did lots of cheering and whooping and the like. I had happy screams for the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence again (although apparently I have a much less strong reaction to them when they are in short cute sun-dresses as opposed to their full nun robes). We ogled some pole dancers doing good work, and very much enjoyed a local horror group who were strutting around kinkily while wearing very little clothing.

I also howled real good for the puppy players, and when they stopped for a little bit just in front of us, I wound up giving one of them a bunch of scritches and making sure he'd been drinking water and telling him he was a good boy. I have known for a long time that I really enjoy interacting with pups, and I wish I had more excuses to hang with them. Maybe I should try and go back to Frolicon some year?

The city was chockablock full of hot queers, and it was delightful. That's my favourite part of any pride, just heaps of little positive interactions with My Community. Smiles and compliments and blown kisses and lusty stares and all having a very wonderful time!

Happy Pride, y'all!

~Sor

MOOP!

Current Mood: awake

Entry tags:

birdie,
firsts

Ten nights in Bangkok

I'm late with this post because of a date night switcheroo followed by being busy. And I can't believe how much has happened. Life seems to move faster now in some ways, not that time is passing faster but that a larger percentage of the hours I spend in a day are actually advancing the plot. So anyway, this covers ten days.

I did a pact, or "tiny experiment", a la the book Tiny Experiments. In particular I had a long email thread filled with lots of goodbye emails from people at Zillian, many of which (but not all of which) warranted a personalized reply, and it was so hard to address that I'd left it alone for a few weeks. A week ago Weds after spending 2-3 hours on email and still not touching it, I decided to start writing five emails to co-workers every day for a week. Which I did! Yes, including on my birthday. I didn't really know how many I would choose to write, but this last Wednesday, suddenly, only two remained. Now some people have written back to my replies, but, anyway, good pact.

The bug and I attended a full moon ritual & singing circle over at Blue-Green Street, and that was new for me.

I went out to the No Kings protests on Saturday, and saw some really excellent signs (including the only boots worth licking are the ones worn by goth girls). I enjoyed the march, then went on to the rest of Norwood's 50th birthday party, which indeed I was in that town for; ended up spending a lot of the party with another of his exes, who I was wildly incompatible with in 2015. A funny moment in time, this one, where we found ourselves both being exes from the same era. I hugged her goodbye and she said "you're still a fucking weirdo", which is 100% true.

My crossword puzzle collaborator and I got excited about a theme idea and started working on it in earnest, with a spreadsheet for possible theme entries etc, but then it became clear that it was too similar to another just-published puzzle and we decided to set that theme down. Back to the drawing board. Bit of a let-down, but I really appreciate how much time he's saving me by nixing ideas before I spend tons of time gridding them out... we'll get somewhere eventually.

I played a lot of Chants of Senaar, carved away on my tree stump, and finished reading Black River Orchard which is the most fun horror book I've read in a long time.

Early on Monday the bug left for Oregon, in order to help his mother in the aftermath of a hip surgery (which has now happened and gone well). I've been holding down the fort since then, which has meant a ton of cleaning. I had to take out the garbage/recycling/compost as well as tidy up everything for the cleaners. However, it was especially wonderful to have the squirrel over at my place on a Tuesday for once, and now the house is very clean.

Israel attacked Iran, holy shit. Also vice versa. I had one of my Israeli friends over on Monday for commiseration and hangouts.

Around and through this, handstand lessons have continued. Better focus means better results; Spring was happy with my press off a single folded-up panel mat on Tuesday. I wish I were doing more consistent, disciplined practicing on my own, but... that sort of thing is where the burnout lies, I guess. July will offer me more incentive to work on my own, when both my coaches are out for a while.

Today's been eventful. I spent most of the day in Salem poking around at all the little witchy shops, with friends; then came back and served dinner to five former co-workers (they're all better friends with each other than with me; I just volunteered to host their group, in exchange for my getting to peep their vibe). Right when that was finishing up, I got a text that Birdie, my bio-kid, has signed a lease for an apartment a ten-minute walk from me! Just across the square. OMG!! That's going to be crazy, just utterly bonkers, having her be local for a while.

And now I am really freaking tired. Time to fall over.

Life, rest, mostly Stardew

Today was the day off to fuck around! Like, the single day I have to recover from burnout of the past school year and be ready for the upcoming several weeks of _stuff_. I'm sure that's fine, I'm sure that's how brains work.

Anyways, I spent the first ninety minutes of the day or so wandering around the various Alewife parks/reserves. There's a lot of good nature over there! I saw multiple turtles and a well posed squirrel and a pretty moth and some ducks! Also lots of green, which smelled overpoweringly of flowers and nature and that's weirdly good despite being a sensory nightmare.

Then I went home and played a _lot_ of days of Stardew Valley,

( the next two paragraphs are boring unless you're also into Stardew! )

In the real world, I wrapped up the evening by hanging with Ruthie and The Toddler for a bit. It was a good evening! A dinosaur drove a truck, which is entirely a correct thing for toddler toys to be doing. And the bedtime story was Magic School Bus and the Hurricane, which was great fun.

Tomorrow has many plans. Here are some of them:

*Call Tuesday, work out final plans/timing for the next few days

*Possibly create A Snack for the pride party

*Go to the grocery store

*Write an entire pre-Pinewoods todo list

*Clean the bathrooms

*Photograph free stuff so I can put it on Facebook and maybe even get it out of the house before I go

*Laundry is a Friday plan. So is packing for mine and Tuesday's adventures and maybe if I'm really good packing one (1) bag for Pinewoods.

Huzzah or whatever!

(And maybe after my dance party I can play a few more days of Stardew).

~Sor

MOOP!

Summer!

I did it! I finished cleaning up my room! I was able to play School's Out For Summer at about 6:50pm or so, which is plenty good as these things go. *THUMP* goes the brain. I would like to do absolutely nothing! But things are coming up!

Here's some good things coming up in the near future:

*I'm going to go to Keuka (in the finger lakes in NY) with Tuesday's family! This appears to be the kind of vacation where you just chill out and read books and go for walks and things. I'm excited! I don't really know how to have that kind of vacation, so it'll be a good chance to try things out.

*I'm doing a road trip from Keuka to MD with Cameron (Tuesday's sibling) which sounds like it will be quite a nice time, honestly. I've road-tripped with Tuesday a fair amount, and ker mom a few times, so I'm excited to do it with another member of the family.

*Almost immediately after, I'm road-tripping back up from MD to Boston (and then ESCape) with mom and Wicked Auntie Robin. Mom and I are definitely compatible road trip buddies! I think Robin will be a good third!

(I recently got a kickstarter which is "gay games to play in the car with your girlfriend while she drives you to go camping" so I'm excited to have some road trips to play the gay games!)

*ESCape is going to be amazing, obviously. I'm the official scottish teacher! I get to MC in the evenings and teach two classes! AAAAH! Good aah, but also stressed aah.

*Once I'm back from ESCape I get to actually breathe for a week or so, which is going to be my play video games time. I am _extremely_ looking forward to it.

And then there's some other stuff in the back half of the summer. That's good too!

~Sor

MOOP!

(no subject)

I have two days left of school, which is probably good, and then I slam into summer with several weeks of Very Exciting. I'm going to drive to MD and back in the span of about four days. Somewhere in here I need to finish preparing for my ESCape classes. I have to pack?!?! Maybe all my stints on crew mean I'll be able to pack a lot lighter than usual for ESC/Scots (lolno).

Tomorrow I should figure out everything that needs to be done in the school building before I depart for the year. Packing up. Printing things. Recycling many many pieces of paper. Submitting grades and paperwork and the like. (The printing things is sneakily a "prepare for ESCape" thing to do --I want to have some properly formatted dances or What Have You. I seem to recall I did quite a lot of this as a work-in-company with Veronica last summer, I probably won't have the MD time to do that again, but it's worth noting that MD does have printers. And so does MA. It's not the end of the world if I fail to print things, is what I'm saying.)

I've been playing lots of Stardew Valley, which I'm quite into, even if I'm getting a little stuck on some of the plot bits. Not looking anything up is a bit of a drag, but also feels very very good when I do figure things out myself. I am glad to have realized I can go back through the library and reread the books I've found --I was worried those were one shot readings, and I'd forgotten the early ones. Anyways, no spoilers, I'm a bit into my second summer.

Went to service ringing today, for probably my last bells for a month. So that's...a lot. Luckily it did not emotionally overwhelm me, maybe partly because I've had a low-key headache for a few days now. I arrived at Advent in time to help ring down, and then we did a mostly nice extent of Cambridge at Old North. (It was only mostly nice because everybody spontaneously exploded when we got to the plain course, and we limped through and barely made it. Sigh.)

Yesterday was pride and I wrote up a bunch of thoughts and should probably post them somewhere, instead of just manually sending them to various partners who like hearing about my life. I suppose there are others of you who like hearing about my life as well or whatever.

I finally picked back up the Endless Photo Organization Project the other day, and sorted a handful of photos. I forgot to note the number at the beginning, so I have no idea how many things got tagged. It's nice to get back into the swing of the project, and extremely nice to have set the whole thing up on the external harddrive, so switching it from old computer to new was essentially trivial. I wish I could figure out a few more keyoard shortcuts to speed things up a tick, but I'm feeling pretty okay with the mousing that has to be done.

Having finished words, I should do at least one of the dishes and going to sleep. Goodnight!

~Sor

MOOP!