puzzles – Page 4 – Philoquialisms

Weekly status update [0034/????]

This is another hell of a week, but at least (mostly) not for me? Thin comfort.

The trilogy that started with Ninefox Gambit stayed mostly excellent, although I wasn’t completely enamored with the conclusion. Still, worth a read. I also read a bunch of other books too.
Other book notes the first: I actually quite liked Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, which is apparently Not The In Thing, but whatever. (I’ll freely admit that its core “schtick” is one I’ve thought a lot about, which alters my judgment.)
Other book notes the second: Fortune Smiles is a fantastic short story collection by Adam Johnson. One of the stories is very dark, but it warns you pretty close to the start, and if you read the book in chronological order you’ll be warned earlier anyhow. This was another one of those “pick it up at random in the library” books that I almost certainly wouldn’t have ever picked on my own, so: yay library displays!
Other book notes the third: I’m in the middle of reading Harlan Ellison’s seminal sf collection Dangerous Visions; I can see how it would have been pretty damn transgressive in the late Sixties, although with the benefit of hindsight it occasionally has a whiff of Trying Too Hard. Most of the stories are excellent, though, and as a whole it holds up impressively well. My favorite bit so far isn’t one of the stories at all, but Ellison’s introduction where he tears into the whiny Old Guard and their complaints about how the new sf just isn’t the same as the old. The fact that it could be taken almost verbatim as a tear-down of the modern “crisis” in sf that, for a while, centered around the whole Sad Puppy/Rabid Puppy/etc. thing is delightful. Everything old is new again, kids.
Despite continuing to read at a rapid pace, I also continue to check out library books at an even more rapid rate. Half of my couch is covered in them. I have thirty-five checked out right now, many of them huge tomes full of short stories that will take me forever to finish. what am I doing
We had an extended game night Tuesday. We played Concordia, one of my favorite games, and I did very poorly, coming in last. Part of that was an idiotic play on my part in one of the final turns that cost me something like fifteen points. I acted like a complete jerk at the end, though, so… I’m afraid I’m not a lot better about that whole situation than I was when I wrote about it last. Ugh. I’m not happy with myself about that.
Finished up Bojack Horseman season 5, which was amazing, and Jessica Jones season 2, which was… fine… I guess. Started on Luke Cage season 2 and Orange is the New Black season 5. I may actually drop that last one, which is veering dangerously close to the sort of “everything is miserable and you get to watch” modern take on TV that I just can’t handle.
I weighed myself on Thursday for the first time in, uh, almost a year, I guess? I’m at 271 pounds; my best guess for how much I weighed when I started on this diet in late April is somewhere between 330 and 360 pounds, so I’ve lost something in the 60-90 pound range over a bit more than five months. (In case you’re wondering, my goal weight is 180, which is technically overweight from a BMI standpoint but is actually on the line where I go from looking healthy to looking less so.) That’s pretty damn good progress, even though I’ve got a long way to go. I was also reminded that I should never, ever own a scale. They ruin my will with the irregular ups-and-downs.
Lots of puzzles, too; I’m finally getting to a point where I’m relatively confident in my Kakuro solving, and I continue to work on several other books and magazines on a one-off basis.
No prose, although I did finish up my Guide to the Cardpocalypse series.
I also came up with the core idea for my NaNoWriMo novel. My current plan is to share that here as I write it (although probably not as body text, which would be overwhelming). We’ll see if I still feel that way come November.
Mostly just the usual on the videogame front, although the launch of Hollow Knight on the PS4 made me buy it (again) and play it, since I find that sort of game way more suited to a big TV and recliner than my computer. If you like Metroidvanias, I strongly recommend it.

Well, that was excessively long, so, uh… until next time!

Weekly status update [0033/????]

What a week.

Saturday, Sunday, and Monday: the storm that didn’t really hit us. I had thoughts.
Most of my weekend time–and, actually, most of my time during the week as well–was spent reading. I think I read something like twelve novels in the last seven days; I know for a fact that I read three just yesterday. It was nice. I particularly want to note the three Seanan McGuire novellas that start with Every Heart a Doorway and the three Ben H. Winters novels that start with The Last Policeman. They were all particularly pleasant reads. I’m currently in the middle of Ninefox Gambit by Yoon Ha Lee, the first in another trilogy. It had a bit of an impenetrable start, but I’m over halfway through it and enjoying it thoroughly now.
I also got back (at least temporarily) into watching television. It’s Last Man on Earth and Brooklyn Nine-Nine in the morning, then the just-released season of Bojack Horseman and season two of Jessica Jones in the afternoon. Both of those are almost done, though; I’ll move onto Luke Cage for sure, and probably finally start the second season of Fargo as well.
Several of my old coworkers (and some that would be new, were I still working) were in town this week, and I was invited to a pair of group events. Those were nice, but honestly the best evening was Tuesday, which involved just three of us having a long conversation about science fiction over dinner at the best local Tex-Mex place. It’s always nice to catch up with folks, but I do much better in small groups than I do in large ones, and I’m delighted that someone reached out to plan that dinner. (Thanks, Mike!)
The downside of said dinner: despite getting through a dozen novels this week, my library stack actually grew (in word count, if not volumes) thanks to suggestions-slash-recommendations from that extended conversation. Sigh.
Puzzles provided a nice series of interrupts over the course of the week. Not just for me, too; I had Amazon ship a fat stack of puzzle books to one of my cousins back home, who had expressed interest in them back when I visited in April, and spent a couple of hours on the phone over the course of the week helping her work through some of them. She seems pretty hooked, which gives me a good feeling. Puzzles are awesome.
Nothing exciting on the video game front, though; I’m mostly taking a break after the heavy Creeper World action from the past few weeks, just maintaining my dailies in the handful of free-to-play games I still muck around with. I really, really need to put Let It Die to bed.

I’ll finish up my Cardpocalypse series this coming week. I know my tiny readership isn’t big on commenting, but: this is your final chance to get me to cover anything you think I’ve missed. So, uh, get on that, I guess?

Weekly status update [0032/????]

I’m writing this one early, since it’s entirely possible that by the end of today I’ll be without power for a week or so. That’s what I get for thinking that western North Carolina is all that different from Louisiana…

Speaking of which, a non-trivial amount of time this week was spent on preparations for Florence. I bought a bunch of low-carb snacks, along with a lot of liquids (read: Coke Zero and, as an even bigger treat, Ginger Lime Diet Coke) to add thermal mass to my fridge, which is usually almost completely bare. Charged spare phones and, vitally, my Kindle Paperwhite; checked out a metric ton of books from the library, washed every scrap of clothing I have, et cetera. I’m as prepped as I’m likely to get. Now it’s just a matter of lasting through the storm.
My reading binge continued, albeit at a bit of a slower pace. Noir wasn’t as good as The Serpent of Venice (both by Christopher Moore); I actually really liked the latter, although I have no particular attachment to either The Merchant of Venice or Othello. I thought it was quite a bit better than Fool, even. Now I’m working on The Black Opera by Mary Gentle, which is good if dense… and glancing over at the 25 (!) other books I have checked out. Woof.
I also played quite a bit on the computer. Specifically, I finished off Creeper World 2 and its free Flash sequel CW2: Academy. I really liked it, although the time pressures in a couple of the levels were very non-traditional for the series. If you’re a fan of tower-defense-y RTS-y turtle-y indie-y games, the series will provide many hours of fun for not a lot of money. It’s available on Steam. Now to see if I can get Particle Fleet: Emergence working…
Still haven’t touched the code for Dudes. Life got a little more hectic slash stressful than I like for jumping into something with that level of complexity.
I did find time to watch a couple more episodes of Jessica Jones, which seems to finally be picking up steam halfway through the season. And the new episodes of BoJack Horseman dropped just this morning. I watched the first one and see no reason to believe it won’t continue to be, for my money, the best show currently “on television” (whatever that means in the streaming era).
My order of puzzle books from Turkey finally came in after spending over a week in Customs. I’m super-stoked about them; there seem to be lots of neat, interesting puzzles inside, even if some of them (like the traditional logic problems) will be forever cut off to me since I don’t read Turkish. It’s every issue of the magazine ever published, and they only cost me $2 apiece even with shipping halfway around the planet, which goes to show just how big a price disparity there is on these sorts of things.

Right now I’m sitting in my comfy recliner, watching the wind steadily pick up in speed outside while I prepare to curl up with a book for a while. I’ll post again here later this weekend, assuming I can. See you on the other side!

Weekly status update [0028/????]

This was a week that even I found surprisingly quiet.

After over a month of off-and-on effort, I finally managed to order a bunch of back issues of Akıl Oyunları, a Turkish puzzle magazine that comes highly rated from several people. It’s basically impossible to get in the United States without some serious shenanigans. Whether they’ll actually arrive successfully at my house or not is another matter entirely…
I actually watched a tiny bit of television this past week, namely two or three more episodes of the second season of Jessica Jones. It definitely got better from the first, rather dire, one. I’m still not sure it’s good, and it definitely comes across as particularly weak after the fantastic first season, but I’m going to finish it off… if only so that I can watch the second season of Luke Cage.
I even watched a couple of movies, another rare event for me. The Avengers: Infinity War was pretty much exactly what I suspected it’d be; I don’t want to talk about it too much, for fear of spoilers, but I can imagine some people who aren’t aware of comic book tropes were Real Shook Up by that ending. I also watched A Quiet Place, which was excellent. It had a couple of silly bits, but overall it was a finely-crafted bit of horror. It’s basically Signs but only 5% as stupid.
After working on it off-and-on for well over a year, I saw the end credits of Picross 3D Round 2… which unlocked a whole other set of puzzles. Heh. This wasn’t surprising to me, as that result had already been spoiled… and I hadn’t gotten the final score emblem yet even though I’ve received a perfect score in every level. I’m taking the post-game easy, though, as I solved a lot of puzzles in a rush to get there, and it’s one of the few videogames that actually hurts a bit to play, due to the weird claw grip you have to hold the 3DS in.
I’m not playing this one, but Landail is: he’s made it to Panzer Dragoon Saga, a game I played back in the late ’90s or early ’00s on a loaned copy from a friend. It goes for over a thousand bucks now (!!). I was a bit worried that it wouldn’t hold up to my memory… but, no, it’s still a beautiful, well-designed game. Phew. Sometimes it’s not Happy Sappy Delusion Syndrome muddling your memories of the past. It’s been a blast to watch.
I actually made more-than-single-line changes to Giles over the past week. Nothing too exciting, mind, but it required me to actually look at some Python documentation, which is more of a commitment than I had made to programming in quite a while.

As is often true for a quiet week, I still somehow figure out how to write several hundred words…

Weekly status update [0027/????]

A week past the six-month mark, and… well, other than that particular milestone, it’s been a pretty bog-standard sort of thing.

I’ve been having fun writing my Guide to the Cardpocalypse, and plan on writing the first one that actually covers games tomorrow or Monday–it’s going to be on trick-takers–so if you have Opinions you want to Express, now’s the time.
A lot of reading this week, but not of the book variety. Instead I read through a couple of very good Let’s Play threads. For those unfamiliar, a Let’s Play is a playthrough of a particular game–in this case, early Dragon Warrior/Dragon Quest games, along with the original Master of Orion–done by someone who is usually very familiar with that game. They show off the inner workings, interesting strategies, and hidden bits. Most modern Let’s Plays are done in video on YouTube; some huge Internet personalities like PewDiePie (ugh) got their start in the format. But the original form was a combination of text and screenshots in a forum (most famously the Something Awful forum, which I won’t link for… pretty much the same reasons I didn’t link PewDiePie above), and that’s the format I like the most. It’s easy to pick up and put down, and I read way faster than I watch video, even at 1.5x speed. If this sounds at all interesting to you, check out the Let’s Play Archive and find some game you’ve always been interested in.
Also actually playing games on my own, mostly Let It Die, where I continue to delay my storming of the endgame for no good reason other than that I’m scared, but also some Dead Cells now that it’s out on consoles. Yeah, that means I bought the game twice, which is dumb, but I really like playing it on my big TV with my PS4 controller.
Had dinner with friends not once but twice over the week, which was nice. Particularly since one of the meals was with someone who moved to Europe in the last few months–it was nice to catch up–and the other was with someone who is moving away soon; another opportunity to socialize with people before they leave is always nice.
One of those dinners ended up being not-the-best for my diet, though, so I’ve been playing it tighter for the rest of the week. I’ve (sadly) gotten used to going to bed hungry, but it’s necessary to help get my “desire to eat everything under the eaves” under control, which (like all addictions) has a nasty habit of springing up with just the slightest provocation. I’m actually genuinely curious at this point as to how much I weigh now; I don’t know how much I had gotten up to, but I have a rough idea. I’m not going to seek out a scale, though. Regular weighing has been one of several things that has completely ruined my self-control due to over-correction.
Other than some more time with Picross 3D Round 2, I didn’t do much in the way of puzzles… but I did finally get a lead on getting a bunch of back issues of a particular Turkish puzzle magazine that comes very highly recommended. (Don’t look at me like that. I already have a ton of Japanese puzzle magazines; why not Turkish too?) I’m waiting to hear back from the publisher/editor. The magazines themselves will be dirt cheap. It’s gonna be the shipping that’s killer.

The weather’s been uncommonly pleasant here in North Carolina, not but not crazily so, although the off-and-on rain makes it hard to enjoy. I’ll take it, though, along with the lassitude of my current lifestyle. It’s been a very different August than my last twenty or so, that’s for sure. And that’s a good thing.

Twenty-six weeks and what do you get?

…half a year older, for sure; thankfully not deeper in debt.

(A quick note: I added a widget to the side that lets you subscribe to the blog via eMail; put in your address and you’ll get a message whenever I write a new article. Several people have asked how to follow along a bit easier. Hopefully that helps.)

My last day of work was February 2nd, 2018. This past Friday marks twenty-six weeks since then, fully half a year of retirement. It’s kind of crazy to think about; I remember when I was in my late twenties and thinking, “huh, maybe I can pull this off sometime in my mid-forties if I work really hard at it.” Working in tech let me pull that off seven or eight years before my original plans, and for that I will always be grateful.

It doesn’t feel like it’s been six months, but it doesn’t feel like it’s only been a couple of weeks either. If I had to put a number on how long it feels, I’d say something like three months… but I’m not sure that that perception of time is really any different from when I was working. I was at my last job for just a bit over five years but it felt like three at most.

Let’s answer the most obvious question first, because it’s also the easiest: No, I don’t regret retiring. Do I have any concrete regrets at all? Sure. I miss the social aspects of my workplace, playing board games at lunch and chatting with people in the halls. I miss the food team and the delicious free food (although my waistline is rather happier now). But I honestly hadn’t been all that happy with my day-to-day job for a couple of years when I left, and there’s no question that I enjoy what I’m doing now–even if, to the outside world, it might look like a fat lot of nothing–quite a bit more.

The money situation requires a Magic 8-Ball response: Ask again later. The market volatility this year has completely swamped any attempt I could make at understanding whether my rate of spending is sustainable or not in the long term. That rate of spending has actually been surprisingly constant over the year, which I discovered almost by accident last week when messing around with graphs in Gnucash; it’s quite a bit higher than I would like–looks like it’s likely to be somewhere around $36,000 for the year, when I’m aiming for something more like $30,000–but there is still a ton of superfluous spending in there, if it turns out I have to buckle down and Get Serious about my money habits. And assuming my spending increases at the same rate as the value of my investments (a pretty ridiculous assumption, seeing as the trend is downwards, not upwards) I still have somewhere around twenty years before I have to touch the first penny of my retirement, at which point I’ll be in my late fifties. Yeah. It’ll almost certainly be fine, but still: ask again later.

As for longer-term plans, well, I said I’d give myself a year before I started worrying about that sort of thing, so get back to me in six months.

From one perspective, these twenty-six weeks have been profoundly unproductive. Other than this blog, I haven’t written anything of note; other than a few tiny patches and tinkerings, I haven’t written any code either. But that’s at least partly by design; I don’t want to force myself into those things if I’m not really feeling it, and in both cases I can feel the desire to “do something” percolating more and more inside me. I suspect it won’t be more than a couple of weeks before I sit down and write something, be it code or prose. I’m going to let it happen naturally.

From another perspective, though, it’s actually been quite productive. Changing the way that I type–something I do a lot of, even if it’s not writing prose–has been a huge undertaking; I remember that first weekend, typing at 5wpm and thinking it was the worst idea I had ever had in my life. But now I’m back to something like 75% of my old typing speed, which puts me in the top 1% or so of typists in the world, and that is Plenty Sufficient for my needs. It’s also way less strain on my hands, something I need to be careful with if I want to be able to do this for the next thirty-plus years. It’s the sort of “short term pain, long term gain” thing that I couldn’t really justify back when my livelihood at least partly depended on how fast I could bang on the keyboard, and my life will be better now indefinitely into the future for it.

There’s the other stuff too. I’ve read a bunch of books I hadn’t gotten around to, played a bunch of games I never finished, completed a couple of puzzle books that have been lingering near my chair for years… basically doing things I always pushed off because I didn’t have the time. My backlog of media is effectively infinite, so it’s hard to say that I made progress on those fronts, and it still grows at a rate greater than my ability to consume it, but there’s no question that I did something there. And that’s satisfying.

Another thing that retirement has made easier is taking control of my weight. There’s no question that I’m addicted to food, and being alone at my house allows me to highly regulate the food I come in contact with; the ever-present snacks at my old work place were a serious impediment to my diet, and although I overcame that for a while it is always easier to just eat all the things. I still have quite a way to go, but the combination of calorie restriction and keto is doing its job. (It’s also making me pretty grumpy some days, but you can’t have it all, at least if you want to drop a bunch of pounds in time for the holidays.)

In some ways this was always something of an experiment. You can plan and plan, hypothesize that “it’s going to work out,” but until you actually do the thing it’s almost impossible to know whether or not such a long-term life shift is actually going to work out. And it’s still very much early days yet; I won’t presume to know that my first six months are indicative of the next six, much less the (hopefully) long life ahead of me. But: so far, so good. So very, very good.

Thanks for coming along on this ride with me. If you have any questions or topics you’d like me to address, whether briefly in replies or via longer-form posts, just let me know. Thankfully I get enough comments to know I’m not just screaming into the void, but I’m happy to hear feedback of all types.

See you here again in six months! (Also on Friday or Saturday, for the weekly rundown. But also in six months.)

Weekly status update [0026/????]

Half a year in. Woof. Let’s jump right in.

I made up for lost time on reading this past week; the first book (Ninth City Burning) was fun but slight. The second, A Dirty Job, was so good that I read the whole thing in a single sitting, something I hadn’t done in ages. Christopher Moore is always at least interesting and funny, but A Dirty Job was also very engaging, as evidenced by the fact that I couldn’t put it down. Good stuff.
As mentioned here previously, we had a game night Tuesday that led to me starting a new series of articles about card games. I’ll be writing another one up soon on card-playing etiquette before we jump into the games proper. I’m still looking for feedback on what games you think should be part of the Guide to the Cardpocalypse.
I actually watched the tiniest bit of television this week, a single episode of Jessica Jones. It was better than the first, which was good. I have a lot of catching up to do with the Marvel Netflix series, not to mention everything else… but honestly I’d generally much rather read, play games, watch other people play games, or do puzzles.
Speaking of puzzles, while I didn’t do a whole lot in any magazines, I picked my Nintendo 3DS back up and did a bunch more of Picross 3D: Round 2. It’s an excellent game, really hampered only by the clawlike way you have to hold the 3DS to be able to hit all the buttons; my hands actually cramp up after solving a puzzle or two, an issue I don’t have with any other puzzle games. I’m close to the end, though, so I’m likely going to try and muddle through in the coming week or two.
I broke my diet somewhat for the first time since I started; I just really really needed some General Tso’s chicken on Thursday, and topped it off with jalapeño poppers. It was delicious, and I suspect that one moment of weakness will help make the next several months easier. I’m not really craving anything right now the way I was before… other than the always-persistent Ghost of Carbs Past moaning in the back of my head, but I’ve gotten good at ignoring that particular bugaboo.

Half a year. I’m definitely going to write something up this coming week about what it’s been like so far, but just in case you were worried: still not bored.

Weekly status update [0023/????]

I almost completely missed that yesterday was Friday the 13th. Thanks, Reddit!

Finished reading The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O. Like many Stephenson novels, it picks up a lot in the rear half, and I went from struggling to read more than twenty or so pages of it at a time to tearing through the last couple of hundred pages in a day. It’s Stephenson Ending Ratio is only about a 0.3 or so as well, which is a pleasant surprise; it’s still too abrupt, but it actually answered most of my questions. I suspect Nicole Gailland (the co-author) had something to do with that.
I also finally finished Minitel: Welcome to the Internet, which was a fascinating look into a bit of technology I knew nothing about. The idea that France was effectively connected to its own private Internet in the mid-’80s is kind of amazing. It was a very slow read due to the huge numbers of footnotes–I have to read them immediately, and flipping back and forth in the book is so slow–but Minitel was one of the better Platform Studies books. Next up is the one on the Super Nintendo. I expect to be at least mildly disappointed, as I am Error (the one for the NES) is maybe my favorite volume of the series, so I’m going in with too-high expectations. Further news as events warrant.
Played way, way too much Diablo III. I have all but one trophy for it now on the PS4, and that trophy requires a lot of boring grinding. I’ve been doing said grinding while watching people on Twitch, so it’s not all a waste of my time, but it’s moments like this that I regret ever hunting down trophies and achievements.
Actually did some puzzles again for the first time in ages. It was mostly multi-sudoku, but I also did two Trigons. Fair warning: even “easy” Trigons are hard, and the really hard ones are damn-near impossible. It’s not uncommon for single puzzles to take me upwards of two hours of continuous solving. Said solution is all the sweeter for the result, though.
Went through another fairly lengthy fast (no zero-calorie days, thank goodness). I think it helped with once again recalibrating my satiety. I will say that the rotisserie chicken I had from Walmart today for breakfast-and-lunch was one of the tastiest things I’ve had… but I know it’s because as of this morning just about anything was going to be delicious.
Not a whole lot of social interaction outside of Twitch, unfortunately. My semi-regular online gaming partner has been busy with other things, we haven’t had a board game night in ages… I should probably figure out something I can do to see actual humans on a semi-regular basis. Probably.

I’m going to the dentist on Monday, which is the first big medical-y expense I’ll have had since I retired. I didn’t keep my dental insurance, so I’m… apprehensive about how expensive it’ll be. Guess we’ll find out! Other than that, though, I feel like things are going well overall. It’s as unexciting as always, but I’m still not bored, and won’t be for the foreseeable future. 23 weeks in: so far, so good.

Weekly status update [0020/????]

It’s kind of amazing to me that I’m 20 weeks, 140 days, into retirement. It both doesn’t feel that long at all–I can still remember driving into work and hunting for a parking spot, sometimes the most challenging thing I did all day–and impressively far in the past. That second part excites me; I was a little worried that the days would quickly start disappearing into a blur of nothingness, but instead I feel like I actually get quite a bit out of most of my waking hours. Sure, it’s reading, or playing games, but those are both things that I wanted to do more of in the past and didn’t have the time for. Now that I do, it’s nice. Really nice.

I’ve officially given up on the whole USPS situation. Dealing with their international handling department is a special kind of hell. I got replacements for all of the items, so I don’t really care that much now; I’m mostly just angry I wasted time contacting them in the first place. More fool me for trying to do the right thing.
I fasted most of this week, and I think that was successful in recalibrating my hunger levels… but then I went and ate way too much today in a sort of rebound effect. Sigh. I still stuck with the keto side of things, so I’m not worried about that, but we’ll have to see in the days ahead if I screwed it up.
Still haven’t done much in the way of puzzles. The dot-by-dot book I got in my last order from Japan is actually really disappointing; it has a bunch of cheater art in the background of most of the puzzles, so you almost always know what the picture is going to be before you start. Boo.
Played a whole lot of videogames this week. I finished Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction after putting it aside a couple of months ago, and tore through Ratchet & Clank Future: Quest for Booty in a single sitting the next day (it’s short, though). I still haven’t made much more progress in Shining in the Darkness, though; I’m not sure why. I was enjoying it when I was playing it. Instead I picked up the original PlayStation version of Final Fantasy Tactics digitally and started playing it on my PS3… but I think I’m gonna force myself to set that aside and get back to the Shining series.
I’m a good chunk of the way into The Moon and the Other, which is an interesting sf novel by John Kessel. In some ways its setting is an inversion of The Handmaid’s Tale, which makes for really interesting compare-and-contrast reading. I didn’t do that intentionally… but it’s a neat result.
Watched a whole lot of Landail on Twitch, as he was playing a game I particularly like (Tactics Ogre) most of the week. Actively spent less time in some of the other online communities I’m a part of due to frustration with some of them.
My back’s not in great shape again yet, but it’s better every day, I feel, and I’m taking an ibuprofen every morning to help reduce the inflammation.
On the other hand, I haven’t needed my wrist braces for days, which is very nice.

All in all, despite the frustrations I had earlier in the week, I feel pretty good about how it ended. Even the tiniest dent in my gaming backlog’s a good thing, and I’ve really been enjoying my recent reading level. Hopefully next week will continue the up and to the right trend.

Tiny bits, late June edition

My lower back’s been killing me since last Thursday, and I exacerbated it by sitting in front of my computer for several hours last night playing through most of the original Creeper World again. I woke up this morning with a realization that I had better move very, very carefully today, or I will be laid up for days.

I’ve been on hold with the USPS for an hour now. They destroyed a package sent from Germany and are supposedly sending me paperwork to file a claim for insurance… but it’s been two weeks and they haven’t yet. Their website is horribly broken, too. Putting in my claim number causes it to have a server error. Confidence level of me actually getting my insurance claim: near zero.

The Handmaid’s Tale is a great book, but I can only read it a chapter or so at a time. What was meant to read as a dark parable at the time of publication comes off much more dire in today’s political clime. I haven’t even touched the second season of the show on Hulu, partly because I want it to finish airing, partly because I’m not sure I can handle it right now.

I’m on my second day of a fast. I had two Atkins shakes this morning (along with a multivitamin and an Advil), and I don’t plan on having calories again until Thursday. I’m not happy with how much my appetite has grown over the last couple of months, and fasting is the best way I know to reset that… but while it’s happening I find myself occasionally thinking longingly of the taste of paper towels.

Reading back over this, it sure seems like a big bucket of negativity, but that’s just a consequence of the moment. A positive: I placed another order for Japanese puzzle books yesterday, and it’s coming in tomorrow, because Japan has their stuff seriously together when it comes to international shipping. I even got a dot-to-dot magazine, because apparently those are okay for adults to do now, and I’ve always secretly loved them. My lines aren’t very straight, but there’s something deeply satisfying about connecting things in numerical order. A tiny ordering of the universe, a pushing back of entropy. And you get a pretty picture as a side bonus.