Also there's a flash flood watch in effect through Sunday morning I think

Okay I'm going to go to sleep for a little while

I love you very much sweetheart 💋

Raw Sienna Deep

Golden Ocher

Alizarin Gold

Rose Madder Quinacridone

Perylene Maroon

Violet Iron Oxide

Joyce's Mother Green

Cobalt Turquoise

Cobalt Blue

Payne's Gray

Okay it may have been hormonal

At least in part

Because I put on some of that cream

And after it had a while to kind of soak in and absorb into my bloodstream I did feel better

And I did still have a little bit more trouble but not nearly as bad as it had been

So I don't know I don't really know what to think

I did finally have that wonton soup though

I'm going to sleep for a little while

But I'm planning for more like a nap

So we'll see how that goes

I love you very much sweetheart

💋

So dreams

I had a lot of dreams and I don't remember most of them which isn't unusual I don't fully remember which is also

But there was this one part

I don't know if it was Charlotte

Or if it was just kind of inspired by Charlotte

But it was current day and we knew each other

And she had several kids I think

She had some kind of palm reading thing

And so now she was coming to me saying something about

I wanted to know the depth for soul or something

And where I thought she was going with this somehow was that she was wanting to get into a physical relationship with me

And in the dream I was telling her yeah I know I don't remember anything about that

Because she was implying that I had written her some sort of love letter that she had never gone somehow

And I'm not sure in the dream if I really didn't remember or if I was just trying to convince her that I didn't remember

Because I really didn't want to go there

But in real life I was never attracted to Charlotte there were times when I wished I was attracted to her because I felt like we were so close or whatever and it would be great

Although later I feel like that turned out not to be true like it wouldn't have been so great

And I'm not sure why I wasn't attracted to it it wasn't anything wrong with the way she looked

Anyway it was weird and I didn't like it

And then I had this other dream that didn't really make a lot of sense there were several people and they were trials but there were tables and chairs all lined up more like a restaurant than a courthouse

And I was this girl I think I was in my late teens or my early twenties and I was walking around without shoes on and that was not very comfortable because it was lots of stuff on the ground that was kind of sharp little bits from trees and the cement was hot

I feel like there was something important with the trial and also something important

What's the barefoot thing

I guess I've been up about an hour

Except I'm not really up cuz I'm back in the bed

I'm not saying that this is still the shot I don't see how it could be still the shot

But I feel pretty convincingly sick somehow

I don't feel like it's food poisoning

Because I don't see what I could possibly have eaten

But my guts hurt

When I stand up I'm kind of shaky

My head hurts in my back hurts too but

Those things are not necessarily

Unusual

I suppose it could be hormones

I just don't know

I keep having this feeling like

You're just faking it

But I really do feel bad

And I took Pepto before I went to bed

And now I'm not sure that was the right decision

Cuz I just feel like it's holding it in

When it desperately needs to come out

And I can hear it gurgling

It's just kind of grossing me out

Well I realize that I didn't get up until like 5:00 or something but I really have not felt very good My stomach has been super upset and I suppose I could have eaten something bad but I'm not really sure what that would have been so I'm kind of assuming that it's some kind of residual something to do with the shot although this seems like kind of a long time after the fact to be that

But it hasn't just been kind of a amorphously upset stomach it's been pretty actively running to the bathroom

And I thought around 10:00 or so that I would just go ahead and go to sleep even though I didn't feel tired I took a melatonin but then I had you know kind of a bad bout of running back and forth to the bathroom and so then I've been kind of waiting to make sure that that's kind of over for now because I don't want to get into the bed and then have an emergency

But then I was falling asleep in the chair

So whatever I think I'm going to go to sleep now

I love you very much sweetheart

Sleep well 💋

So there's some thrift book shops on eBay selling used books really inexpensively and also free shipping

So the rabbit hole I went down last night was and looked through 23 pages of vegan cookbooks and then anything that looked really promising I looked it up on Amazon and tried to look and see what the reviews were like for it and what the table of contents was like none of them would let me look at any recipes at all but they would let me look at the table of contents

And I watched some reviews before I just started going to the 23 pages but for the most part I wasn't very happy with the reviews

So I got fresh new vegetarian and vegan recipes from the award-winning fresh restaurants which is in Canada.  I want to say Toronto but I might be wrong about that.

And then I got another one called refresh that's I think the second one in the series.  It's like you know sandwiches and soups and salads and smoothies and stuff like that it's a vegan place.

And then I got one that I meant to buy like 10 years ago the Chicago diner cookbook.

And then I got an Indian vegan cookbook.

So that's like four cookbooks with tax and everything that was $19 so I'm pretty impressed.

I was kind of surprised there were 23 pages of vegan cookbooks although in fairness there was a lot of duplication.

My thinking was that I really like the moosewood restaurant daily specials cookbook that's salads and soups and so rather than trying to get something that was going to be all complicated and fancy

And I did find some fancy stuff

But I think that things that are more like comfort food are a better bet.

And I'm hoping that the Chicago diner has there lentil loaf 

I don't know about seitan

I mean I like it just fine I made it before but I don't know that I want to start loading up on the gluten

The vegan test kitchen woman has a great recipe for chicken that's made with tofu that you freeze maybe freeze it twice I think maybe freeze it twice

I may make some little nuggets like that before I start with the side tan but I don't know

I think I'm going to sleep for a little while now

I love you very much sweetheart 💋

I'm sorry what it just occurs to me that it didn't make clear is that it wasn't my art or my signed photograph it was first it was a fairly big painting that I don't know who it was done by but then it became celebrity art

And then it became something to do with baseball

I don't remember any of the people involved

But they were all famous

And impressive

I dreamed I was at a gallery

I'm not exactly sure if I worked there

Or if it was my uncle's gallery

But somebody wanted a donation

And so I was trying to help them

And what it actually was that I was giving them

Kept kind of changing slightly

First it was a piece of art

And then it seemed like it was

Assigned autograph or something and I don't know

And I kept trying to figure out how to represent exactly what it was that I had given them because I assumed my uncle would need some kind of tax information

And then the person I was donating it to was in the corner arguing with two other people

And they weren't being very quiet about arguing

And it turned out that this whole thing was just to get like information

Because of some kind of investigation

And that caught me all been out of shape

And I was kind of scolding them about trying to get a donation or whatever falsely

And then

She started telling me all this stuff about how I was like sexually assaulting young men

And I'm like what the hell are you talking about

And she was going on and on about how she'd seen me doing this and that and the other thing and what she was describing was just like being friendly with customers kind of thing

You know vaguely flattering and vaguely flirty

And like how is that sexual assault That's just being friendly

It was weird

Also before that

Maybe I was in my car

Maybe I was standing in the yard I'm not really sure

But there was this car that kept driving around and it was a like a truck but instead of having the back with all the place to put stuff it had like one little seat for the cab and the whole rest of the front wasn't there

And then on the back it had like a

A slide on living area

I can RV or something

I just kept driving around and a crazy person

And that had some significance to me in the dream but I don't remember what it was

I'm going to sleep for a little bit

I love you sweetheart 💋

So I had this dream

It was pretty enjoyable while I was having it

But then I woke up

I think because I had to pee

I wasn't so sure that I liked it anymore

I dreamed that I got married

But I was marrying a woman

And we've been living together for a while and we were pretty happy together I think

And then just all of a sudden

We decided to get married

I'm not really sure why

And what the dream was mostly about

Was it was kind of an L word situation

We were living in a community and we were friends with lots of people in the community and

We got married in like a week

Wasn't like a big long drawn-out planning and ceremony and whatever it was just this very informal thing that we did

And all the different people that we knew contributed some part

It was really happy and joyful and beautiful

But then I woke up and I'm like well that seems wrong

And although the character that was "me"

Wasn't really very much like me

I was kind of upset because I wasn't marrying you

And if I'm going to dream about getting married

It felt like I should be dreaming about you

And I know I know when dreams people can be different people and whatever and maybe this person I was marrying was you in the same way that I didn't seem like me

But it just kind of upset me

And I slept a really long time

So I guess I'm feeling better since I could stay up all night

I still have a headache

I just said that and what the thing heard was stop headache

And while yes I agree stop headache

That wasn't what I had said

I've got bad munchies

There's no reason for them

But I want popcorn with butter and salt

And Cheetos

And smoked almonds

And that's it I guess

I guess I just want salty things

I wonder if that means I'm dehydrated or need electrolytes or something

My arm is almost not sore it's really only sore if you press on it The muscle is tight where the shot was

I'm just a tiny little bit warmer than the rest of me

And I'm tired

But you know I've been up all day

Well I guess not all day but I got up at like 11:30 or something

I'm having some mood too

I'm not sure exactly how to quantify it

I mean on the one hand I'm super happy

Because that was shot number two

So now it's just less than 2 weeks

Before I'm theoretically

Not needing to worry about covid

Now is that true I don't know

They're still variants

And I don't think the shots make you 100% protected but I think it's supposed to be like 90 or 95% protected from the major strain

And like 60 to 70% protected from the variance maybe

So if you still mostly wear a mask

Probably you're good

And they say if you've been vaccinated then even if you get it it doesn't going to be the horrible kind where you got to be hospitalized and you maybe die so that's encouraging

And I just keep thinking

I can go to a restaurant

I don't want to go like everyday I don't want to go like all the time I just want to go once

I mean I'm sure I want to go again but I'm not like wanting to get back to the way things were or whatever that means

I just want to go

To the chiaroscuria

That may not be what it's called but it's something like that it's the dancing meat place that's where I want to go

And

I want to get back to eating vegetarian

But maybe it needs to be vegan

But

Maybe it needs to be everyday vegan with some vacations from vegan

Because I don't think I can be happy as a vegan full-time

But I can see where Dairy might be a problem

And where that might lead to a decrease in health

And I love dairy

And I eat a lot of dairy

I mean I guess not as much since I've been eating meat

And I'm strongly considering doing a 3-hour diet

But I just got to figure out

What am I eating every 3 hours

Cuz I don't have those shakes

I don't know

I love you very much

I'm glad I don't care about the Oscars

Or I might be upset that I hadn't seen any of the movies

But I really don't like them

I see them as being very political

And people win for things that they don't deserve because they didn't get it when they did deserve it because it went to somebody else

That was just kind of an opinion I formed really when I was still a child

But I just don't feel for them the way I used to when I was a kid

I used to really love the Oscars

And I love the Miss America pageant

And it was about the same time

That I just stopped thinking either one of them was something I really needed to be involved with

Not for the same reason

But it seems adjacent somehow

And now

I'm not even really sure

How I feel about the idea of awards of any kind

I mean I know people want to be rewarded for really great work

But I don't know maybe it devalues all the work to try to put it into a comparative format

Maybe I'm just

Still impaired by the vaccine I don't know

Does that make any sense

Also I don't remember mentioning this but maybe I've already mentioned it to you

But lately I've started being really offended when people say cat owners or really pet owners of any kind because I don't think of your pet as a possession a thing that you own you wouldn't own your children you wouldn't own your friends it's offensive to me the idea of pet ownership I mean calling them a pet is already iffy

Anyway I'm falling asleep in the chair now

I love you very much sweetheart

Goodnight 💋

The Oscars are tomorrow

I've only seen two of the movies

That Chicago 7 movie

And Mank

Is that spelled right I'm not sure

Haven't seen any of the other movies

And I don't really remember that Chicago 71 all that well even though it wasn't that long ago

Mank i guess I saw within the last couple of months

I liked it I thought it was well done but I know I've seen citizen Kane and I couldn't remember anything about citizen Kane but I'm sure I've seen it

In fact it would have laid odds that I'd seen it more than once but I couldn't seem to recall any part of it at all

I'm going to go to sleep now

I love you very much

I'd say I'm most of the way over it

My arm still hurts but mostly just if I touch it

I'm still kind of tired

But I don't feel overly

Muscle fatigue-y

One thing that I didn't mention before

That has been a side effect of this second shot

Is pain specifically

In like old wounds

Not really old old wounds

But like where my cat cut my leg that was hurting really bad the last couple of days

Now my breast hurts where I had the cyst

It's a little disconcerting

But I was worried that the second shot was going to be really bad

Since I had a fair number of symptoms on the first one

But I wouldn't say it was a lot worse

The fatigue and the muscle aches were worse

But the dizziness and the nausea and some of the other things were much less

Someone balance I wouldn't say it was really much worse

But it was distinctly different

And I did end up taking immune stimulants

Just not the first day

Goodnight sweetheart

I love you very much 💋

I had emergen-C

And Tylenol

I'm not sleeping

I'm laying in the bed and I have an awareness of my body that's not like normal

I'm both profoundly comfortable

And profound the uncomfortable

All of my joints ache

I haven't been having any kind of food cravings

I don't typically have food cravings

But

I need wonton soup

I have food

But I might have to order wonton soup

I was thinking about my grandmother

She used to give me sherbet

I don't remember if that was what I was sick

Or

If she just gave me sherbet

But I was thinking about that

Pineapple

Shouldn't usually give me pineapple

But I was thinking about pineapple sherbet

And then

Not sure but that's too sweet

But like gallons of pineapple juice

What's in pineapple juice

Do I have proteins that need to be eaten up

And I would kill for a back massage

Also

Fucking

I don't want to do anything

I just want to lay back

It's almost like my hip flexors

Or saying that's what they want

But also

It's like the electrical charge of life

So I didn't sleep very well

I woke up like every 2 hours

And I would say that I woke up every 2 hours because I had to pee but I don't think that's why I woke up I just did pee while I was up

I suspect my sleep cycles are 2 hours instead of an hour and a half like they're supposed to be

And so when I'm not sleeping restfully I just wake up every 2 hours

I just had the fan on because it was like in the 60s so there was no need for the air conditioning but then when I leave the fan on when it's that cool I have extra blankets

Because I mean I think my metabolism is slow normally I'm not normally 98.6

But when I sleep I think I go down a lot more than that so I get cold traditionally

And yesterday I was colder

So in addition to my regular blankets I put on a polar fleece blanket

But I set my alarm for like 8:00 cuz I just wanted to kind of check in with myself 

And when I woke up I was covered in sweat

Now it's not possible for me to completely isolate that from night sweats but it doesn't seem like quite that much sweat

But there's another front coming so it's super super humid and it's warmed up a little from the night so I don't know whether the sweating means that I had a little bit of fever that broke or whether it's just too many blankets and not cool enough room temperature or whether it's hormones it's impossible for me to really isolate that

Also I have a headache but it's impossible for me to isolate that as well

My arm still hurts but doesn't seem quite as bad as it was

I'm not specifically super achy but all of my large muscles seem fatigued is the best word I can use like it's just a little too much energy needed to move them around

I feel distinctly unwell but not specifically sick

Slightly clammy maybe

There's definitely kind of a buzzing in my head if I woke up like this I would say oh I'm getting sick but I wouldn't say that I was sick you know

But I probably would think that I should not do anything

So All in all not too bad I guess

I think I'm going to stay in bed for a little while

 goodnight sweetheart

i love you

very much

 as soon as my head touched the pillow

i knew it was the right thing

i slept a few hours

then i got up and ate

i feel better

but

i'm about to sleep again

so

maybe not that much better

well

mostly

my body hurts

getting back in bed

Goodnight sweetheart

I love you

very much

💋

also, i feel a little dizzy

 it all went ok

it was kind of anti climactic

the first one was almost ceremonial

and the people all had the feeling of saving the world

this was more like the pharmacy manager had to vaccinate people

in between her other duties

and

i related to that over-much

then

i picked up some groceries

and stopped to get gas on the way home

still

i had wanted to pop by someplace close to home

and the universe made that happen

i'm not complaining

i had donuts

and

i got a cake

symptoms:

my arm hurts

my glands feel swollen

and my muscles feel similar to when i took muscle relaxant

but not quite so pleasant

my head hurts

but

what else is new

i didn't tell you last time

but

last time i took immune stimulant

i'm not sure that i'm gonna do that

this time

I'm not sure these color are really reading

Such beautiful browns

mixing these colors

and

the green

I don't really need

but

it makes things faster and easier

I get my second shot tomorrow

I'm very excited

there's another front coming

is there somewhere without weather

I'm bored with headache

I need to go to bed

I don't want to sleep through my appointment

I love you very much sweetheart 💋

sleep well

goodnight 💤

I'm getting my second shot

tomorrow

less than a mile from my house

Kroger ftw

I'm waiting to hear the verdict

Even though I couldn't bring myself to watch the trial

I don't really know what I expect

I just really hope

He's convicted

Goodnight sweetheart

I love you very much 💋

some more of the colors I can blend from the nine colors

My mom hasn't noticed yet

about my hair

Well so far no one has sent me an email or a text about scheduling my second modern shot but it might be that they're not going to do it until like just a couple of days out I don't know and I know that it's theoretically possible to schedule a shot at one of the other places that they're giving them HEBs or Walgreens or CVS or some independent places but I have not had a lot of luck The places that will let you schedule it seems as though it's just the first shot to put in anything about a second shot so I don't know

Lucy got her second shot at CVS so I'll probably see her tomorrow maybe I'll ask her about that and I've got no reason to think that they aren't going to contact me I would just really rather not have you know no lead time and I would really rather have more options for where I could have it rather than less and there's a place that's more or less just around the corner that seems to be one of the independent pharmacies doing covid shots but it just says first shot only so I haven't really got any reason to be worried yet and I'm not worried but I would be happier if the information was a little more forthcoming

I'm never going to get this sleeping and being awake thing figured out it's just it's just not working for me like I'm planning to get up at 6:30 and I'm not sure how that's going to work for me maybe I won't maybe I'll get up at 8:00 but that's still not a lot of sleep

And you might say just make yourself go to sleep but you know it's easier said than done I really don't mind very well

I love you

I hope you're doing well

It's still like in the '60s

I think it's supposed to go up to the '70s tomorrow

I wonder if this is the last cool weather we're going to have before it gets hot I don't know maybe not maybe it'll just maintain a nice warm but not hot weather

My hair is doing this weird flip it's like I'm in a early 1960s sitcom or something

Wanda vision

Anyway I'm going to try to sleep now

Hopefully some more exciting stuff will happen tomorrow and then I'll be able to tell you about it

Oh I did forget to tell you

My hip is much better I think driving kind of fixed it up

I mean it still might be a little bit stiff I'm not saying it's 100% perfect but it hasn't been given me any pain and that's really the part I care about so yay

Still no period So maybe I won't be getting one

Or maybe I will and it just wants me to be like someplace where I don't have any supplies or anything I don't know it's tricky like that

So we're watching out for periods

We're watching out for scheduling second shots

We're bobbing and weaving trying to avoid headaches

We're using heavy rotations of retinol to try to get the face to finally heal up which it hasn't yet but it's better

I don't know why I'm suddenly referring to myself as we should that concern me I think it was kind of the like implied you're with me thing you know not so much like the Royal We

I don't know I might be losing my mind

I might have been losing my mind for the entire time you've known me

Or I might just be thinking about how I'm not going to get any sleep and so I'm semi delirious

But I'm not really semi delirious

I'm just in kind of a weird mood

Sleep well sweetheart

I love you very much 💋

Oh and it's 53° again what the hell

I'm going to sleep for a while now

I love you very much sweetheart 💋

I thought well that's not even really true I didn't think that I was going to be able to stop paying attention to what was going on in the world I just did briefly

I think I don't know I was going to say I think I should move to Canada or Australia or someplace and maybe that's true or maybe it's not true I mean I don't know that you moved to Canada and you get away from all the problems that the prejudice and the hate

You do get away from some of those things

But some of them do still have just another forms

Maybe or maybe I'm full of s*** I don't know I I just don't know why anybody is willing to send their child to school anymore

I mean

Come on

The risk of being shot isn't bad enough

Everybody is just going to have to let this gender thing go

I mean people are just too up in arms about it what difference does it really make you know I mean yeah if you are an Olympic athlete then you should be held to some kind of higher standard that might involve drug testing and it might involve physical examinations and whatever I don't know I'm not even saying that I advocate for that but I'm saying if you're competing at that kind of level then okay I get it

But I mean God damn in a world where for more than 20 years we've been telling the kids in their soccer which I think is largely played coed for kids isn't it You know you're the first winner you're the second winner you're the third winner blah blah you're the last winner I mean isn't that what the Gen xers and whatever we're all kind of like why is there no competition anymore it's going to ruin all these kids when they grow up and you know what sure enough the millennials have a totally different outlook

And you know what That's not bad

I mean I would prefer that what we did was say gender is a construct and so you know have some gender don't have some gender whatever but don't make it be a thing

I mean my initial problem with the whole transgender thing was the idea that if you're born into one body and you say oh no no I am not this gender I am the other gender well that reinforces the idea that there is gender and that there's two of them and that it's very specific and I don't like that

But actually

I've come to see it differently now

Gender is largely performative and for some people performative gender is empowering and they should be allowed to have that empowering experience whatever it is

For some people gender is not an empowering experience performative gender is not an empowering experience it's a disempowering experience and they should not be forced to engage in it

I mean people should be able to identify however they want to identify and kids should just be able to play sports and they're just does not need to be all this concern about what is in people's pants

And I lots of times feel like you know I should do that pronouns thing but I really don't know what to put for the pronouns thing because I don't feel like it makes me feel more seen or whatever if you call me they them but I don't specifically want to claim she her I don't specifically identify with he/him but it doesn't upset me anymore at one point it kind of did but it doesn't upset me anymore if somebody uses a hehem pronoun with me so I mean I would say and it is a thing to say it's an acceptable term to say pronoun indifferent but I'm not sure that everybody who would read it would understand what I meant

Also

Just to clarify

I'm not BPD

I just find it interesting

Although I will say that when I was going to therapy it seemed like they were trying to find some way to make me a more interesting case because the therapist asked me at one point if I thought I would could possibly be bipolar and I'm like no I don't see how you make a case for that what have you seen that makes you think that and she's like oh no no I just curious what you think or some b******* like that

And then when I went the other place to get the prescription the nurse or assistant or whoever it was I don't think I ever actually saw the psychiatrist oh I think he might have sat in on one session one time because he had to write the prescription or whatever but she said something one time about borderline personality disorder and she didn't exactly say I think you have borderline personality disorder I don't remember the exact context she brought it up in but I started trying to find out information about it and I'm like well this doesn't sound like me at all I don't see how you make a case for this either and so I ask her about it and she's like oh no no we weren't diagnosing you with that

So I mean I didn't think much of these people I mean I might have other stuff wrong with me but I don't think it's that

Now I have thought I wonder if my mother has a little bit of that because she definitely does that splitting and she definitely has very violent reactions to you know you just do some little mine or thing and you've set her off but as far as I know she's never done any kind of self-harming behavior so I mean I don't think she meets all the criteria

But I don't really understand BPD

And I just ran across some videos and I thought that was very interesting

It's been thunderstorming today and I didn't go to the studio and then I was up for a while and then but I think I got up at regular time and then I was up for a while and then I had a headache and I went lay down for a while

I have not started my period I don't know if I'm going to have a period or not but I just had a lot of symptoms that made me think I might so we'll see

And then this evening I remembered that next week is when I should be getting my second shot I haven't gotten any sort of notification to schedule which they said I was going to but they didn't they don't really want to give you a lot of lead time like last time when I was going to schedule they gave me like an opportunity for an appointment like the next morning and it's like you know that's not enough lead time

But I can't remember what day they originally contacted me on so I mean I sort of think that it's supposed to be a week from well I guess today now cuz this is Saturday now and I feel as though they're probably not going to contact me until Thursday or Friday but word on the street is you might be able to schedule it at one of the like HEBs or CVS's or one of those kind of places if you've already had the first shot but you have to be very close to time you can't like say oh it's you know in two weeks so let me schedule it two weeks out so I don't know I don't know how this is all going to play out but I need to start paying attention cuz I want my second shot

And I don't know if the fact that I had reaction to the first shot means that I will also have a reaction to the second shot or if it means that I have got it out of the way and I won't have a reaction but my suspicion is that if I had a reaction to the first shot I'll probably have a stronger reaction to the second shot although I don't know maybe that's wrong

Have you been able to get any shots yet

You know the truth is

About the pronouns

I would really rather have different ones

Not they them because I'm not plural

And I understand that some people are very happy with those but doesn't do much for me

I'd really like something more like

shu/hir

But that seems like it's asking too much

hir is pronounced here

And it's not like I really want or expect that I don't really care but it's just when I ask myself what I want but I want is something like that

I hope you're doing okay

Everything feels kind of weird

I can't exactly qualify what I mean by that

I feel like a lot of people are behaving as though stuff is going back to normal and I don't really feel like it's gone back to normal

I feel like it's getting harder and harder to focus on things

But at the same time

I feel like I'm too focused on things

And I'm having these dreams that I feel like are very deep and vivid but then I can't remember them and I don't know it just feels like

I want to say time slip

But I don't really know what that means

And I haven't really been reading my Twitter feed but I was just on there a little while ago and there's marchers and protesters again and I know that's because they've been more shootings but I don't think it's just one I think there have been multiples and

I feel out of touch

But I also don't feel quite capable of absorbing I don't know exactly whether I don't feel capable of absorbing news or whether I just don't feel capable of absorbing more shooting and police brutality and just f***** up b*******

I want the f***** up b******* to stop

I'm going to sleep for a little while

I love you very much sweetheart 💋

I hope everything is well with you

that doesn't look that scary

Okay

So the thing about the pandemic being in quarantine and lockdown is that I haven't been doing things the way I would normally do things and that includes things like getting dressed and brushing my hair

No I think I mentioned before that I was only washing my hair like I don't know once every couple months or something

And the way I was dealing with all that is I was keeping it braided and then every once in awhile I would take it out of the braid and get all the knots out of it and braid it again

See my hair it isn't straight it's got like kind of a wave or kink pattern to it and when it gets to be a certain degree of long it starts turning into like a dreadlock

Not just automatically not just you know left to its own devices but like when you wash it and the hair gets all you know scrunched up together then it turns into one or two big matted sections that have to be unmatted

So you know I try to cut it once a year or so so that it doesn't get to be that long but the last time I cut it I cut it short

And that is an unusual I often do that because I go I don't want this long hair I want some hair I can run my fingers through so I cut it short and then in a year or so it's long again and I cut a short again now it doesn't happen every year sometimes I just get it trimmed and I cut it short the next year or the next year but I guarantee you that at least once every 3 years I've got it reasonably short

At least the last 10 years or so

So pandemic locked in no haircut so it's been two years and a bit since I've had a haircut and the braid situation has kind of degraded

A few months ago when I tried to take it down to braid it the center section that was in the middle had a big knot tangled knot mass that I couldn't really undo now I didn't try as hard as I might have tried because it was just in an awkward position and untangling it you know when it's this long it's really it's tiring on your arms so I got the first two sections untangled and I said I'll just do the next one next time so then when I wanted to do them again I couldn't get it I couldn't untangle it not for the life of me and I said well you know as long as I'm keeping it braided it's not really that big of a deal in for a penny in for a pound you know

but then recently I mean I don't know I guess maybe I've been tossing and turning when I'm sleeping more or maybe I'm sleeping more or I don't know but the whole back of my head just got kind of knotted and tangled and I couldn't untangle any of it it was just a mass I could still braid it but the top part of the braid was just a big mass if not that was essentially dreadlock it was woven together now the top part of my head and you know what not is all still straight and you know pulled back into the braid and then it started to kind of grow so then it wasn't quite right you know it was looser

So I'm like well you know I always wanted to have a dreadlock well I wanted dreadlocks when I got old I didn't want one big dreadlock mask down the back of my head but again in for a penny for a pound

And then when I leave the house and go out I take the whole mass and I kind of wrap it around artfully and put my hair band things around it and it you know it looks the same ish

I mean at first I thought it looked maybe a little bit better but then I was like it's starting to look kind of rough and it just seemed to be working its way up the back of my head and so for the last few days I've been thinking you know I've either got a commit to this one giant dreadlock thing and just ride it out and if it doesn't work I'm going to have to shave my head or at least the back of my head or I'm going to have to cut it

And the idea of trying to cut through this big massive tangle to try to get my hair free was a little bit intimidating so I kept going back and forth and back and forth and I had a haircut back when I was in my mid-20s that was like shaved on the back of my head and hanging down in the front and I really loved that haircut not so much because I thought I looked amazingly beautiful in it or anything but because I really loved being able to feel the shaved back of my head I really loved that and so I thought well you know worst case scenario I can do that it'll be fine but then it just seemed to be working it's way up and working its way up and I'm like it's it's too tall it's getting too tall now You need to decide what you're doing this is a time for action so I cut it off and I can't really see the back of it I washed my hair because it was I mean it actually the kind of cool it was like almost standing straight out frizzy because even though I had washed it not that long ago the parts were the the knot is you know either the soap doesn't penetrate it properly or there's too much oil or maybe it's a combination of oil and soap I don't know but you know only the external hair really got washed and so all of the hair by the time I was done untangling it all of the hair was coated in this really kind of sticky oily stuff that thickened it all up and made it all stand out and I'm like well that's interesting looking

So I washed it three times and you know it's not like I have a stripping shampoo I've got my yucca shampoo bar but I think it's pretty rough

And it's funny because you know most people cut their own hair at some point you know they went through an emo phase or something or they cut their own bangs or they did something but I have always had such you know love for my hair that I wouldn't do that because I didn't want to mess it up so I mean now it's it's scary looking and I'm sure it can be fixed and cut into something it's not going to be a long something but I'm still kind of basking in the glory of not having a big heavy rock hanging off the back of my head

I do seem to have a little more hair

And I have generally pretty well behaved hair that's got enough wave in it that you know it's not real obvious exactly how it was cut

But this was n't cut you know it was butchered so I'm really kind of afraid to get a better look

I've been avoiding it

But I mean it had to be done

And I have a wig that I could wear

Didn't seem to really work with the long hair all up under it but you know now there is n't that much hair to put up under it so I don't know if it looks good on me or not I couldn't get used to it but I didn't try for a long time

But I don't know maybe I have enough hair that I could get that shaved back of the head thing again it seems to be kind of in a yeah it might have to be something like that feeling it it kind of seems like I've got

Well less hair in the back let's just say and it may be obviously cut out hacked because when I was untangling it I got several big chunks

I'm sorry

I didn't purposely ruin my hair for you

But I'm strangely not that upset about it

explanation to follow

here's an updated picture of my scar

I was thinking about

drama

from my last period

just sayin

no

to dramatic hormonal displays

I think it's better though

divit's still there

but

smaller, I think

These colors aren't reading 100% right

The raw sienna looks kind of orange and it shouldn't

And the golden ocher looks a little orange or too other than that on my monitor they're reading pretty accurate

But those are five of the nine colors I was talking about

Well it's possible that I might be going to have a period soon I don't know for sure but I had to go to the post office today to mail some stuff back because I ordered it and didn't work out for me no that's cryptic okay I ordered some clothes and you could argue that perhaps I shouldn't have ordered them in the first place but when they came they weren't amazing

So I had to go to the post office to mail them back and I had to wait in line because I need to get a receipt for having mailed them because if I just drop them in the mailbox and they don't get there then I won't get credit for them and I've never had a problem with that before but the mail has been a lot screwier this last year than it's been before not even the whole year just since they threw away all the mailboxes and got rid of all the equipment it's been pretty unreliable since then so while I was there waiting in line I was like man my back hurts

I've been kind of in a funk like emotionally but I don't necessarily assume that that means anything related to periods

But then my back hurts

And Mike guts were very unhappy and I've had brown rice which usually makes them very happy so I'm like that doesn't make sense either and then I went oh

Also I have like three cystic acne on my chin that could have their own zip code plus I have this thing coming up under my eye which I've been picking at and I shouldn't in my whole the whole area is swollen I'm just a mess

So I don't know

I'm not really sure if we're going to the studio tomorrow but haven't gone to sleep yet and I'm a wreck so at this point I'm leaning for a no vote

I guess I told you I ordered the bras I just didn't tell you I ordered the other stuff

So that all went back except for the mesh shirt and I'm in love with that that is so comfortable it's been very hot in the studio during the time when it wasn't actually hot and so I've been kind of dreading how hot it might be when it's actually hot cuz there's a lot of sun that comes in there but this mesh is really cool

It's a little bit see-through but not too bad it's got a pattern on it so

It's a snake pattern and I had been wanting a snake pattern something but never seems to work out but this is it's red snake so it's got red but it's kind of a neutral red and kind of a golden rod shade and then it's also got kind of a blue green tone I think it looks pretty good on me I mean to be honest with you it might not do that much for me it might not be like oh my god she looks amazing in it but I really like the pattern I really like the colors it really makes me happy

My face hurts

I've been thinking about this thing back when I was I guess I was probably 18 I was working at the book stop maybe I was 19 I'm uncertain I won't say I was in love with because I really don't think I was in love with him but I had a crush on this guy who worked there or maybe I was obsessed with him I don't know

When I look back on it I really don't understand why and anyway it isn't about him

There was this restaurant that was across the street and I can't now remember the name of it but I used to go there pretty regularly

And one day this waitress she came up to me and she's like basically some kid who worked in the kitchen had a crush on me or something and I was like you know I'm not available I'm I have a crush on somebody else cuz I mean I think I thought she was trying to set me up with the kid and so I was telling her no no and she's like come on come on and then she thought I was being a real b**** and she was making it clear that she thought I was being a real b**** and I couldn't understand why

But now I think that probably she just wanted him to come out and say hi to me be introduced to me you know and so how could I not do that and yeah how could I not do that I would have been perfectly willing to meet him and say hi to him but that wasn't what I thought she was asking

And I never went back to the restaurant it's freaked me out so bad so I've been thinking about I probably traumatized the poor kid or made him think that I thought he was hideous or cuz I could kind of see him through the doorway and he didn't seem hideous or anything I just was all obsessed with somebody else I'm sure that kid would have been a lot nicer

But I feel bad and I don't understand why she couldn't have made it clearer what she was asking me

I really hope I didn't traumatize the kid

I've had Kurt Cobain running through my head all day the song

For some reason I'm trying to decide what is the very smallest number of paints I could have on a pallet that I could actually use because I tend to be increasing the palettes I tend to say oh if I only had this color then I could do so much more

But for some reason today I'm missing da Vinci paints I've been painting with the qor and I really like them but I don't like them as well on that 300 lb paper because you don't really get the flow that paper is very thirsty and it just sucks everything in and some of the paints have been painting with are the shminka paints and some of them are DaVinci and some of them are the qor

But I've been kind of missing some of the DaVinci colors actually I've been using some of the DaVinci colors but I've been missing some of the other ones

And I was just trying to come up with if I had an all DaVinci palette which I haven't had I just have a lot of DaVinci colors on my pallet at home

And if I was going to have a pallet then only had one blue on it I would use the Daniel Smith sodalite which most people don't seem to think is blue they seem to think it's gray and when I told my mom if I was going to have one blue on a palette it would be the Daniel Smith so the light she said it's not blue it's gray and I'm like okay so I painted it out

I painted a swatch of the sodalite

I painted a swatch of the shminka tundra blue which is an ultramarine blue with a raw umber

And I painted a swatch of the qor indigo

And I mean they're not identical colors by any means but they are all quite similar

I had initially thought the qor indigo was a very warm blue but it's actually the coolest of those three for sure The shminka is basically ultramarine blue but the raw umber just takes it down a notch to where I like it regular ultramarine blue it's too bright or something I just I don't like it I don't like blues in that range I don't like cobalt blue I don't like ultramarine blue I don't like cerulean blue I don't like really any of those blues I like manganese blue because it's got more green in it or something I don't know but the DaVinci Cobalt blue is appealing to me for some reason

But the sodalite it's a very deep blue but it's very warm it's got it's got like kind of a slightly purple note to it almost although I had never really noticed that before but it's it's it's really pretty but it's not as intense it's not as deep of a color somehow or it's it is as deep of a color but it's it doesn't have the color intensity that the qor indigo has

And I was thinking you know I would just use the sodalite

But I was thinking you know if you were going to use an old DaVinci palette and you were going to have the fewest number of colors what would you have

And I would definitely have

Raw sienna deep

Golden ocher

Alizarin gold

Rose matter quinacridone

Those are all on my regular palette and I really really love them

And I was thinking I'd have the green gold and the pearlene green but then I thought well you know how much do you really need green if you were trying to come out with the easiest least number of colors you know you can mix greens

But there's this color that they have that I watched some videos they've got a pallet that you can buy it's an artist collaboration thing and she uses this particular kind of green that she had them mix up for her it's called mother Green and it's not exactly a sap green it's green and brown and something I don't know but it's a really pretty good green and what she does is she does washes of the green and then lays other colors into it wet on wet and I was like you know if you're doing any kind of foliage that would totally work

So maybe I would get that green

Maybe

And then I looked at all their blues and they're indigo it's not dark enough so I would have to go with 

Payne's Grey as my blue

But then I was like well will that work for mixing everything you need to mix do you need another blue and I'm uncertain maybe I don't need another blue I mean the cobalt blue looks a really pretty it looks really pretty and I think the pains gray is maybe a little greener the Cobalt is a much warmer blue

So I'm torn I mean the Cobalt is toxic and I would just assume not have any toxic colors but it is appealing and the fact that I've never wanted a cobalt blue before makes me wonder what's so special about this one maybe it was just watching that woman laying washes into the green and the blue that cobalt blue just was so luminous in that green it was just beautiful just beautiful

And I've been leaning pretty heavily on the mixture of indigo and raw umber and I really really like the raw umber that's in the qor set it's like my favorite romper I think I like it even better than the holbein one

But the DaVinci just seems really weak but I do quite like there violet iron oxide and I don't know if it would function in a similar way I mean it's not the same color it's not at all the same color and it won't mix the same and it won't do the same thing but I do use it quite a bit in mixtures The only problem is it is kind of opaque and it has a lot of granulation in it I'm looking at that mix of colors especially if it doesn't have the cobalt blue well then you're not looking at a very luminous group of colors

The raw sienna isn't luminous it's a great color and I love it and you can use it to mix a lot of things with and it would make a really great green with the paints gray I'm confident but it wouldn't be a very transparent green

The golden ocher is semi-transparent and it looks pretty luminous I like it pretty well as a yellow it's my favorite yellow

Alizarin gold and rose madder quinacridone are both very luminous and transparent but the pain is gray wouldn't be so it just seems like you know your balance is getting towards the more opaque colors if you throw in the violet or an oxide

There's an ultramarine violet that's pretty that might work as well away into a mix but I'm not one for a lot of purple and although that will probably neutralize the yellow is just fine it's too delicate to do much with the paint's gray and it just doesn't seem like it would really have much mixing capacity in general

So then I was thinking about periling maroon which is a really pretty and very transparent color but it's kind of low chroma so you know you probably get some interesting mixes and you probably do some interesting washes in the same way you get with that green and it might even neutralize with that green so you'd get a black or a dark gray or something

So I'm just going round and round thinking about it and there isn't really any reason for me to be going around around thinking about it because I'm not needing to set up another palette you know

But that was five colors I had before

Well six if you count the green

So if you add

Cobalt blue

Perylene maroon

Violet iron oxide 

and like I said before

Mother Green

That's nine colors

That's not the world's most limited palette

I mean a split primary palette is only six

But the idea of painting with those colors seems like it be kind of challenging so I'm thinking about that I don't really know why I spend so much time thinking about color I guess color is what I really like about painting color and texture and brushstroke and everything it's not so much having things look like something I mean that is sometimes a thing but that's not really what I enjoy about it it's all got to do with the color

I've really got to sleep

I love you very much sweetheart 💋

Goodnight sweetheart I love you very much 💋

Goodnight sweetheart

I love you very much 💋

I'm going to go sleep for a while

Well I didn't get everything done today that I needed to get done

I woke up with a headache again The weather's doing all kind of crazy stuff well I guess it's not really that crazy it's just changing from cold hot to cold to hot and something's blowing and it was very very windy

So I suppose it could actually be blowing in allergens from somewhere or it could just be a front I don't know My headache got better and it didn't take anything for it so I assume that whatever it was was not as intense

My bras came and I'm very excited because they both fit one of them is super comfortable and it's plenty supportive as far as the need to be supported goes but it's more of a comfort bra and it it isn't youthifying I'll say

The other one is not quite as comfortable but it's still pretty comfortable I've got more range of motion in my shoulder blades and arms than sometimes I have with bras and the straps don't seem likely to fall down which is another problem that I have with bras but it is a little more youthifying than I would like

It doesn't make them appear bigger but it does make them perkier in a more overt kind of way so I would be tempted to send it back but it was $7 and it's a comfortable effective bra so it's getting pressed into service

But the one that's super comfortable I mean it is super comfortable like I could easily sleep in it if I wanted to sleep in a bra which I usually don't but I did at one point in my life

So I checked to see if there were any more of those and then I checked to see if they were any that weren't as is that were just like you know available to buy and there are no more currently at all so the ones that were so inexpensive were basically clearance bras that had been sent back and so they're being sold as is so it apparently sold all the way out

But I found another couple that were $7 and they're actually the same bra but one is unlined and one has sewn in cups in a microfiber and I'm a little leery the sewn in cups because I don't want something that's going to make me look bigger but they had a model on a video that I found and she models all their bras I've seen her in bunches of their bras and she was obviously wearing that model and it didn't make her look bigger to me she's a double d and she already looks you know pretty large and very round so it might be that she's just the right shape for it to not really show

So I almost didn't order it I can send it back if it doesn't work I almost didn't order it but it's a weird bra that sized rather than being sized like you know 40 double d 42D whatever they're sized like small medium large extra large 1x2x3x so I don't think they can really have the cups be a particular cup size because in theory they're supposed to fit a range based on your measurement around and your cup size so if it was actually like the whole cup that wouldn't work so I think it's just like kind of sewn in the way if you got a bathing suit and it had cups sewn in just you know a thing to keep your nipples from being visible basically give you a unnatural roundness

And I ordered the 2x which when I have done that with another bra it was too tight but that was a thin cotton material and it fit it was just tight enough that I was concerned that it might rip this fabric shouldn't do that they didn't have any 3x's left in the as is if they had any maybe all the 3x people were super happy until I send any back I don't know but it's blue it comes in blue like it's called eclipse or something it's a dark blue it's a really pretty

And they also had one in just like a pinke or beige or something that didn't have the cups and I ordered that one too

But I am like all about a blue bra so I hope it works and then the unlined one I also got into x cuz that was all they had so I mean we'll see which one works better

And then they had another one that was as is but it was not $7 it was like $15 which is what I've seen as is once for before I've ordered as is bras before it's a newer model it's not on clearance so that as isn't quite as cheap and I may have to send it back I may be sorry I went back and forth and back and forth because I've bought their bras for I don't know years now

However long I've been buying things from QVC that was one of the first things I bought from them and that may actually be how I started shopping there I come to think of it I think it is because I had bought bras and underwear for ever from the avenue which was there on Richmond close to the galleria it was more or less in my travel path for years and they had really good prices on bras and underwears comparatively and I did buy some clothes from them and although I would have thought the avenue was a kind of poorly made clothing store I still have a skirt I got from them a couple of skirts I got from them One of them has seen better days but one of them is a color blocking skirt that I think I may be need to repair now I think it's got like a little place where the seam on the split seam has started to come apart but I mean you know I got that 20 years ago and it was in reasonably heavy rotation for a while not as heavy as some of the black clothing because I couldn't wear a color block gray and black skirt at Starbucks but I really like it I need to mend that so I can wear it some more anyway I'm sure that's fascinating

But that was where I bought my bras and my underwear and then when I needed more bras and they were not there I mean they're still our avenue stores but they're not convenient to me they're like out somewhere and it wasn't worth it to me to figure out where they were exactly and drive to the store just to get more bras and I probably could have gotten bras at Lane Bryant but I hate Lane Bryant I've hated Lane Bryant for a long time I used to shop there a lot because they're used to not be very many places you could buy large size women's clothing as the whole country got fatter a lot of brands realized that they could make some money selling larger size clothing and so then they started doing it but you know it used to be that they were only a very few places you could get larger size clothing and all the regular stores just had regular size clothing that only went up to sometimes 12 sometimes 14 once in a great while there'd be something that would be a 16 and you should be just really glad they had anything it was not going to be something good also the assumption was that if you were fat you were old and you probably didn't care much about being stylish so the clothes were not very attractive generally

So Lane Bryant was a place that I went a lot and initially I kind of liked them but then they decided that they were going to have I don't know I think they may have been bought out by someone and they changed

And I continued to shop there periodically but I didn't really buy much I think probably I stopped buying things there in the early 90s

I started shopping at Chico's

But mostly Macy's

Macy's had a pretty large plus size women's department and when they would have sales they were good sales so I would buy clothes on sale mostly mostly the things that were like already on the sale or clearance rack and then they'd go on bigger sale but sometimes if something was really amazing I would buy it when it was just on you know regular sale for 25 or 30% off

So I would buy my clothes at Macy's

And then later I discovered Ross

And Ros s Ross is kind of like thrifting

They can't really thrift as a plus-size gal

Because there isn't much I mean there were some like resale shops that have some plus size stuff but it's mostly pretty lame

But thrifting

There didn't used to be fat people remember

And the clothes were all like matronly and whatnot so thrift stores aren't bothering with that stuff I mean maybe they are now but I pretty much have never seen and I've been to thrift stores but I pretty much have never seen anything really worthwhile plus size it's depressing

If I was a size 6

I could have the most amazing thrifted wardrobe the world has ever seen because I've seen so many things in a size 6 at thrift stores that are just like amazing

No it didn't dictate me correctly what I said was

A-MAZE-ING

Anyway so Ross is mostly crap but if there's a Ross on your travel path and you're willing to stop by multiple times a week and just walk through well when you find something it's like amazing and really cheap and like the greatest find you know I have some clothes that I wore for years and years and years that I paid like $5.99 some of my favorite clothes and it's easier if you wear all black anyway which I used to because everything matches with everything else you just have to get something that's you know a good shape doesn't even really matter what the fabric is all that much because you know black goes with black and it's hard to really see the finer details of a fabric when it's black

And once I found Ross and I had a pretty good core collection from Macy's then I would just you know pick up the odd piece at the Chico's outlet and the odd piece at Ross and then every once in awhile I would get something really nice from Nordstrom and that seemed to round things out nicely

But I mostly didn't buy things at full price

No I guess I got a few things I really liked from Target that black shirt I'm not positive about the brand I think it's like Massimo or something but it was black and it was long sleeve and it was this really nice fabric and then I fell and tore it open and my district manager wouldn't let me wear it to work anymore even though I tore it because I tripped on their floor and I really loved that shirt I wonder what happened to that shirt I must have gotten rid of it at some point

Anyway I needed a new place to get bras and I was looking and I don't know what search on the internet turned up breezy's bras but I'm pretty sure that's how I got started shopping on there although oh I forgot when I was talking about where I shopped before in between Macy's and Ross there was a whole period of home shopping network I got some really good clothes from home shopping Network Diane von furstenberg had a line on there I had some clothes I really liked and more for years from that but they were all pretty large and then I lost some weight and I said I'm not going to regain this weight and to ensure that I don't regain this weight I'm going to get rid of all of my clothes now maybe I didn't maybe there's something packed somewhere but I don't think so there's this one tank top that I just cannot tell you how much I miss it that if I turn out to have packed it somewhere which again I don't see how that's possible but I just keep hoping that maybe it'll turn up somewhere but if I ever find it I will squee so hard

It's kind of long and it's like a mat it's not like Matt Jersey but it might be that it was called Matt Jersey it might have been an earlier incarnation of Matt Jersey I don't know but it was Matt and it was like this burgundy wine kind of color with all these little bitty textural marks somehow so that it was sort of like a print but not really a print you know Man I loved that shirt I'm trying to remember exactly when all this stuff was

I had this one outfit and it must have been like 94 95 I'm just not even sure maybe it was earlier than that I don't know maybe it was when I was still in college no couldn't have been I don't know it wasn't black it was a skirt that was this beautiful like kind of hot coral I don't think it was silk cuz I don't think it had to be dry clean maybe did have to be dry cleaned maybe that's what happened to it is that I just decided I didn't want dry clean only clothes I don't remember but yeah it probably was but it was like this sueded silk or maybe it just felt like sweeted silk and it came below the knee but not a lot below the knee it was like you know a regular person length skirt and the top that I wore with it because it was an outfit it was this like kind of turquoise egg blue and had like a little kind of peplumy flounce and I don't remember what the sleeves were like I think they were above the elbow they might have tied maybe and it had flowers on it but they were kind of painterly artful flowers not like little ditzy floral or something I can't remember what kind of flowers I'm not even sure they were actually a kind of flower they might have just been kind of like an abstracted flower but they were white I think and there might have been a little bit of yellow I don't know but I felt like I looked so good in that outfit and that was you know where did I go in that outfit I don't remember this is like a treasure chest of information that I am just discovering I forgot

I remember the Diane Gilman silk knit skirt cuz I wore that that was like ankle length black skirt I wear that for years oh that skirt and that shirt I didn't get those from the home shopping I got that from Macy's I'm pretty confident I got that at Macy's

I remember I went to a job interview and this was like I don't remember what year it was it was right after I graduated from college but it might have been right after I graduated from college the first time before I went back

And it was a job interview for like a bank teller or something right and I got all dressed up in what I thought was you know appropriate work attire

And I'm actually laughing cuz I'm remembering

So cuz remember I had worked for years before I graduated for college and I had been like you know assistant manager at a bookstore and whatever right You know

So it's not like I was you know a teenager who had never worked but I clearly had no sense of what one would wear for certain different types of jobs I just had a sense of what I thought was good right so I had I don't remember what kind of skirt I had on I don't remember the skirt or the blouse but the jacket I had on it was linen it was kind of an ecru natural color and I had this cut out work on the back it had to design that was cut out and I had I want to say navy blue hose but like you know thick hoes like not quite tight but opaque navy blue opaque hose and maybe the skirt was navy I don't know and the shoes were they were heels but they were like chunky heels and they were I want to say they were like a suede chunky round-toed like kind of match the jacket ecru

And I did terrible I did terrible at that interview there was one point where she asked me a question that I thought was not appropriate for her to be asking me like how much money was I used to making at my previous job or something right cuz I had just graduated from college so you know how was how much I had been making at my previous job pertinent you know

So I got slightly adversarial just you know in tone and I'm sure facial expression but I've been known to frighten large men with my facial expressions

And I didn't know what avocation meant

Now you know I had gone to high school and college and studied all kind of you know creative things and philosophical things but I guess the concept of avocation just never came up

And you know

I wasn't really raised with the concept of hobby

There were things that you did because you enjoyed them and there were things that you did to make money and there was a lot of overlap between those things hopefully

And I'm not a person who is used to hearing words that they don't know but that was apparently somehow important to being a bank teller and the fact that I didn't know it was you know a test I had failed

But the reason why I told you so much about the outfit I was wearing is I thought I'm laughing again I thought what I was wearing was appropriate not only to a job interview but for you know working at the bank I was specifically trying to dress in a way I thought would be helpful to me it wasn't that I was trying to be a freak I thought that was a good way to dress for that

Oh my God I had forgotten all about this

So she looks at me

And she says you're obviously a very creative and stylish person but are you able to dress conservatively you know for a bank environment

And instead of saying what I should have said which I of course know now that I should have said was like you know yes if you provide me with a dress code I'm perfectly capable of following it

What I did and I'm laughing again I did was to just kind of lift my arms up in a very dramatic shrug and kind of pass them down my body like I have demonstrated to you that I am capable of dressing in a conservative manner as appropriate for a bank teller

I did not get a call back

It had to have been after I graduated the first time so like or maybe even before I graduated so like late 91 early 92 something like that

I think that might have been the first like no it couldn't have been I was going to say that was my first like legit job interview but I had had jobs before I must have interviewed for them oh oh

I'm laughing again

I'm really bad at job interviews

I mean maybe I'm not now I don't know I've done a lot of them so I kind of have a better idea what people are looking for

But I remember when I interviewed at the bookstop I was like 17 I had just graduated from high school and the idea of working in a bookstore seemed like a really good thing I mean I had worked at a display company maybe I haven't worked there yet I am uncertain I must have I have some uncertainty in the provenance of my employment history

But anyway I applied at the book stop and it was before they opened they were doing interviews like outside and

I don't remember I don't remember much of what they asked me really the only thing I remember is they asked me what kind of work do you not enjoy to do and I was like boring repetitive work

I did not initially get a call back

They hired their whole first crew of people

And I went on to gain full employment at Miller's Outpost

Do not recommend

I mean it doesn't matter because I don't think they exist anymore but

There are better ways to earn $3.35 an hour

And do not let them know that you are competent or you will be folding jeans all day long because they had big sales on jeans all the time and so everybody would go in and just start pulling the folded jeans out of the wall and then just throwing them all over the place

I work there for like maybe 3 months

Which seemed like forever

And then I guess the book stopped had worked through building out the inside of their store and setting everything up and I don't know whether they had lost some people or they just needed more people or whatever so they called me and offered me the job and I was like yes

And gave them notice at the Miller's Outpost

Where they said they were very sorry to lose me because I was such a good worker

And where I had first discovered that women could wear men's shoes the sizes were different differently numbered anyway and the men's shoes were a lot wider and more comfortable mens shoe sizes are like one and a half sizes smaller so if you wear a woman's size 10 for example you'd wear a men's eight and a half or if you wear a size nine you would wear a size seven and a half

I got some shoes there I don't really remember if Miller's outpost had women's clothes I think they did I think they did and maybe they didn't have women's shoes maybe I just liked the men's shoes I don't remember

But I got these shoes they were like lace up gr ay I mean they weren't really dress shoes they were they had rubberized soles on the bottom of them but they were kind of they weren't casual shoes either they were maybe dressy casual like something that if you were going to wear dress clothes and you were a man but you wanted to be a little more comfortable cuz I don't think that men's dress shoes are very comfortable that you could get away with wearing these they were maybe you call them oxfords I'm uncertain in my mind when I see the word Oxford I see a two-tone shoe and these were not two-toned they were just like a leather and kind of not pointy but narrowing at the front ovally-shaped and they were gray like not super dark gray but not light gray kind of a medium gray I guess but the rubberized soul was kind of a that brown color that looks like artist erasers and has a little bit of a texture to it You don't see it very much anymore I think Clark still makes some shoes with soles like that and they were laces but they were like nice kind of dressy laces that match the shoe I thought they were super comfortable and I was kind of toying with ties

Kind of trying to figure out if I could look Butch if that was a thing

Of course not that long later I was into dresses

Not because I was trying to be film but because I found some really cool dresses that I liked they had these big full circle skirts and they were like fluorescent colors again not black

Man this is going to be really long

I think I've been talking for like 2 hours or something

And thinking about me in my early twenties just really makes me wonder how I live to be this old cuz I feel like there's a way in which I was kind of clueless about everything I mean I didn't think I was clueless I thought I knew what the f*** was going on but I did not I most emphatically did not and I guess that's pretty much true of all people in their early twenties I just guess I haven't really spent a lot of time thinking about that I mean I've thought about little isolated bits and pieces of it but not but whatever you know

This morning after I woke up the first time and took aspirin and decided I wanted to go back to bed and see if I can make my headache go away I had this dream

That you had somebody I'm not clear on who it was exactly play me something on French horns it was like a whole section of French horns or maybe it was French horns with a brass section maybe it wasn't all French horns but they were playing me something

I'm not 100% sure what it was

It might have been part of 714-715

But it might have been something else I'm just not sure I've had a lot of stuff running through my head

and in fact the night I didn't sleep at all I had a piece of classical music stuck in my head just stuck playing again and again and again and again and again and I couldn't remember what it was and it was driving me crazy and I knew that I knew it that it was something that I should know the name of

But then later that day I tried to remember the piece of music and bunches of classical music that I've known at various times came to mind but I could not remember I'm sure it wasn't the same one and I don't know what all that's about

Anyway now it's even later All right I got to go to bed

I love you very much sweetheart 💋

So I kind of need to go to bed

When I went to bed last night I was only going to have like I don't know two and a half or three hours to sleep and I was like well I don't know

Do I lay down and I tried to sleep but I don't think I really fell asleep I think I just kind of drifted in and out mostly awake

So it's pretty tired today but I went ahead and drove myself in and it was so much faster driving myself have all these little like shortcut ways to do things and I mean I'm not quite up to driving full speed again cuz I still feel kind of awkward driving but I think I still drive faster than my mother

And I took West Park and you could drive 40 on West Park and there isn't a lot of traffic usually and there aren't as many stop lights so I mean when she drives it's like 45 minutes and I think it was like 30 or 35 minutes but I feel like it was closer to 30 it's about 9 or 10 miles

But I didn't go on the freeway cuz that would not make it faster I don't feel like

And besides I don't really like to drive on the freeway I mean I like to drive on the highway but not necessarily in my car although the speedometer has been working pretty much all the time so that's good

But I wanted to get some new paints still in that qor paint but some different colors

And I've been giving it a lot of thought and I wanted to get the transparent yellow oxide but then when I got there they had restocked and they had a lot of paints that they didn't have before and so I also got the nickel titanite yellow

And I wanted to get a darker red and I was kind of going back and forth and back and forth about which one to get and I was thinking about a lizard and crimson but I can mix a lizard and crimson because I've got when I got the high chroma set it has transparent pyrrol orange and quinacridone magenta and if you mix those two together you can get the full range of warm to cool reds within a certain tone or color family group whatever you can get reds all the way up and down the scale

And then I got quinacridone red light which is very similar in a lot of ways to that matter lake Dore

It's kind of an orangy red but then it's got a pinky undertone it's really beautiful and so then that when I mix that in that takes it in kind of a different direction and so I gave it a lot of thought and I decided to get the pyrrol red deep which is not really a color that I would normally get

I find I have these colors that are like me colors and that pyrrol orange is also not a color that I would get and I don't really use it on its own but it's great for mixing well I mean it's a pretty color on its own it's just a bright orange which is not something I would normally use The quinacridone magenta is very much in a color family that I would use

But I don't actually use it by itself I mix it also

So I thought well you know with these paints I'm doing a lot of that you know mixing colors and I really wanted a Mars violet or a perelyne maroon

I'm not sure I spelled that right in fact I kind of think I didn't but I can't be bothered to look it up not maroon the other word parelene

So I looked at all the reds they had and I was like well I could get the cadmium red deep but I don't think that's going to do it but the pier all deep I was pretty sure that would mix to the color that I wanted

And then I mean obviously I can use my periline green but I watched somebody talking about the cobalt green and that's a color that I feel like I wouldn't normally get but the cobalt teal I love in that line and that's a color that I wouldn't normally get either so I felt like well you know it's kind of in the same color family as the perylene green but it's super granulating and you know I watched somebody talking about how you know you can get some really great effects if you wash it over a staining color and then you've got this like you know green granulating over and they showed some leaves and I was like okay well you know you've kind of sold me on it it's not a color I would normally get it's not a me color

And I'm surprisingly a verse to using colors that are not quote me colors end quote

So I went up to the studio and I had to like swatch them all out mixing all the colors and figure out how they worked and the yellow it's to be honest with you it's very similar to the yellow that I started with when I started the watercolor painting that I was like nope nope nope except that it's a little softer and it it just looks a little more natural even though it's so intensely cool yellow it's it's just very different even though it's not very different but it is very different and then the transparent yellow oxide it doesn't lay down as smoothly as I would like for it to the colors great but it's a little streaky but what I was kind of wanting to do the effect I was wanting to get was to lay down that very light yellow that's like just a bright ray of sunshine and then wash the transparent yellow oxide over it so that even those two colors you get kind of an effect of it being kind of one thing and I do like it like that also if I take the green gold and I dilute it so that it's in its green yellow tone and doesn't have the more greeny mass tone and I mix it with that yellow I get a really beautiful lemon yellow which is not a color I would use a lot but you know it's good to have and then if I mix it with my derelied yellow I'm not going to look that up that's not spelled right either I get a lighter warm yellow because that derelide yellow is almost orange it's I love it and the reason why I picked that yellow is that the high chromoset came with quinacranone gold and I hate that color I don't know why everybody loves it but I just hate it it's in its mass tone it's this kind of brownie color and then you can dilute it down and get a decent yellow but you've really got to dilute it a lot and yeah it's great and mixing tones but I don't tend to mix those things so it's it's kind of depressing to me and I had on my other palette golden ocher by DaVinci which is a blend of yellow ocher but I don't remember if it's the natural one or the synthetic one and then p y 83 and I didn't know what PY 83 was and I even think I looked it up and it said you know industrial use blah blah but it didn't have a name and so then when I found this girl I'd yellow I'm like well that looks pretty close and then I looked on the pigment and it's 83 so essentially if I mix a little of the transparent yellow oxide into that I'll probably get my golden ocher that I like so much and the transparent yellow oxide is very similar to the Ross in a deep I think it's called by DaVinci that's not actually a sienna it's actually a yellow ocher it's the other one whichever one one of them the raw sienna deep and the golden ocher one of them is the natural yellow ocher and one of them is the synthetic one but I can't remember right now which is which so the Rossi and a deep even though it's called rosiana it isn't rosiana it's actually Jesus it's just typing in what the f*** ever it wants to You probably figure out what I'm talking about if you just kind of hooked on phonics it

So even though it says it's raw sienna it's actually yellow ocher and on my regular palette I have that one and I have the golden ocher and those are the only yellows I use and I love them and now I feel like I have all the components of those colors even though they're not in exactly the same configuration and they're going to work exactly the same way but they're kind of you know my colors and I was using the Naples yellow that came with it for kind of all of those things but it's very opaque and it's kind of a muddy color so I haven't been very happy with it as comprising that large of a percentage of my yellows so now I have all these weird yellows that I'm going to be mixing together in various different ways and it's kind of exciting

And I have that green which I really haven't figured out yet but I did use it a little bit and it's it's cool there's definitely a little bit of a trick to it

And then the pure all red why when I'm saying pure all is it saying pure all peer pier all or maybe pyrol ah there we go pyrol red That's not spelled right but it's closer pure all well there we go again pyroll red deep didn't look exactly the same in person as it looked in the videos and on this watch cards and stuff and funnily enough the original red that I got was just a regular purol red not deep and I didn't like it and when I looked at this there was initially a little bit of that same feeling in me like nope nope nope and I'm like you know this is a beautiful beautiful color and you're using it for mixing anyway so just calm the f*** down so I mixed it and tried it with all these different things and it's so beautiful mixed with the quinacridone burnt orange which isn't really burnt orange I don't know why they call it burn orange because every other brand calls that quinacridone burnt scarlet and it's the same pigment number so and it's the same color does not look like orange I don't know why they call it that but when you mix that with that PRD that is a beautiful f****** color

I mean it's pretty on its own and it was pretty with every color that I mixed it with but the color that got it to the kind of murky purpley color that I wanted was indigo which kind of surprised me

It's also quite a good color mixed with raw sienna no not rossiana raw umber now why did you read Ross sienna once and then rosiana the other time I guess I've got a heavier accent than I thought I had

Anyway all that took a little while

But anyway that painting features all those colors except for the green The green that's in there is the shminka olive forest olive which I really love that color but I can't tell that it's granulating at all so I'm not sure why it's a super granulating color but I really like it in fact it's kind of funny because I sort of think that my favorite colors well I like the gray a lot I think it's forest gray and I like the I think it's tundra blue which is basically just ultramarine blue with raw umber but ultramarine blue I have never really liked it I mean that's like everybody's favorite blue and everybody puts it on there standard palette and all that kind of stuff but I just I don't like it and I don't like cobalt blue I don't like those blues I like the Daniel Smith soda light genuine a lot but most people don't consider that to be a blue I mean I could literally use that as the only blue in my palette but most people consider it to be like a gray or a black substitute but then you know I'm mad about the indigo so when you put the the raw umber in there it just I don't know exactly what it does to it cuz it still looks blue but it takes it down out of the range of that bluey blue and it gives it a little something something that all of a sudden I love it so I really like that color I really like the deep sea indigo which is just this very gentle kind of bluey purpley gray it's nothing like an indigo I don't know why they call it indigo it's like weird colors that I would never use it's like Veridian green and cobalt violet or something but it doesn't really granulate much but it's just a really beautiful color and that forest olive it doesn't granulate but it's a really beautiful color The deep sea green isn't really a green it's more of a blue green turquoise tealy kind of color it's actually very similar to the Mayan blue that I had on my other palette

But yeah I like some sort of a dark dark indigoy type blue and then like a manganese blue which is a greeny blue

I was getting along just fine with the indigo in the cobalt teal but the cobalt teal is heavily granulating and so was like well I didn't want everything to be granulating so you know I looked long and hard and I was like you know you sure you don't want to get like cobalt blue or ultramarine blue or Indanthrene blue

And I'm like nope I want manganese blue

And manganese blue isn't made with manganese anymore they make it look like manganese blue but they use phthalo blue but it's not intense like phthalo blue I mean my mom she seems to use phthalo blue almost exclusively but I don't like phthalo blue I mean it's kind of pretty but it's so intense it takes over everything and it's it's too much and it's a little too green but the manganese blue I read this whole article one time talking about how this woman she went through all kind of jump through all kind of hoops trying to find the exact color of a blue sunny sky and she decided it was cobalt blue and a particular brand and whatever but I disagree for me that sunny blue sky looks like manganese blue so I don't know

But I don't know if you can tell what I'm painting and I got a smaller piece of paper that full sheet watercolor is pretty huge and I kept having to like turn it so I could get to the stuff I wanted to paint because I couldn't really reach well I could kind of reach but not well enough to really get at it the way I wanted to so I kept having to rotate the paper and that works fine for what I was doing but it was going to work less fine for what I was doing and besides I wasn't sure that this one I'm working on was worth using up a whole sheet of really good watercolor paper so

You know my mother asked me anything about watercolor I know everything when she gave me that piece of paper I was asking her you know what kind of paper is this because it had this very smooth surface that wasn't like a hot press then it wasn't like a cold pressed and I couldn't quite figure out what it was and she's like I don't know so anyway I went downstairs cuz I wanted to find out if they had something similar but in a smaller size and I was really aiming for 18x24 but they don't have that so I got 16x20 which is really quite a good size and so I was looking at them and Lucy and I were having a discussion and she was talking about hot press paper being good if you want to get more you know hard edge outlines and puddles and whatnot and cold press and I mean I'm familiar with the hot press and the cold press generally and this didn't seem like either one and so we were going back and forth and back and forth and Vicky's like well you know a hot press on a 300 lb paper is very different from a hot press on 140 lb paper

And so you know I took a look at the hot press on the 300 lb paper and that is in fact what it was cuz you know I can pretty much look at it and tell but for sure when I touch it I can tell and when my mom had given me the sheet of paper I'm like I'm sure this is watercolor paper cuz it really feels like some kind of printmaking paper you know it was thick and kind of soft and it had this very smooth surface

And then my mom had come in I got there about 11:00 and she wandered in sometime after 1:00 and when I got back upstairs with my paper she's like well it says on the paper what it is and I'm like if it says on the paper what it is then why were you like I don't know when I asked you what it was before and she's like I don't know but if you would take in that piece of paper downstairs Vicky could have told you what it was and I'm like well I didn't really want to take my finished painting and drag it all around the store I'm like besides I could just feel the papers and tell

So it was kind of weird but watercolor paper is kind of expensive

I don't know if you can really tell yet what I'm trying to paint

I'm hoping that it's going to read as kind of like a really big field it's kind of undulating with flowers and plants and stuff with the sky in the background but it's been a while since I've seen one of those and I'm doing it in kind of a slight well not slightly abstracted fairly abstracted internal landscape kind of thing but I'm pretty happy with it so far except the sky I got the sky a little darker than I actually wanted to get it because I was going to use the deep sea indigo but then like I put down that ultra marine blue tender blue I put that ultramarine and raw umber blue down on the paper and I was like oh no that's darker than what I wanted to use and I'm like oh but it's so pretty and so that I just went ahead and painted it that color and I'm trying to kind of blot it out so that I don't get it too dark and I didn't really leave any clouds and I really should have left some clouds so that I went in with this Daniel Smith iridescent topaz color which is kind of like a gold but it's not as gold as that it's just like it's iridescent and it's light and it's kind of vaguely gold but somewhere between like gold and champagne with a little more yellow in it than champagne it's a really pretty color but it didn't quite read the way I wanted it to so I'm not 100% happy with the sky and I don't know whether to go in with like some gouache or acrylic or something we're just leave it be or what

So I think I've been up like 36 hours because even though I was exhausted earlier as soon as the sun went down my alter ego came out and it's not tired but I am tired I got some stuff I need to do tomorrow so I can't just sleep all day

Kitty is looking very put upon he says why will you not go to bed we are supposed to be sleeping I barely got any sleep last night and now you're going to make sure I don't get any sleep tonight of course what could he mostly does asleep right but apparently the only sleep that gives him really good sleep is when he's sleeping on me when he's sleeping on his blanket or in his little bed or in the thing in the window that he likes to sleep on or any of the other sleeps places that doesn't count so I am ruining his life by not sleeping now

He has a very hard life does kitty

So anyway I love you very much sweetheart You sleep well

goodnight 💋