goodnight sweetheart I love you very much 💋

Okay so I'm exhausted from coughing

So I'm backing off of the Ella campaign

And I'm going for the cough suppressant

Generic tussin

My ears are very plugged up and that is making me a little bit dizzy

And I'm feeling nauseated but I don't know if that's because I haven't eaten that I took Tessa on an empty stomach or if that's because I have something else going on I don't know

Also the herbal thing I take to top up my estrogen receptors I don't know if I took it yesterday

And I don't know for sure that I took it the day before yesterday

And it only takes a couple of days of missing that before that starts making me nauseated

So okay I just took one now

And I'll try to remember to take one later and maybe that'll get me back on track

I just feel like

Body maintenance has become quite the chore

I texted Lucy and I told her hey you know when I talk to you on Sunday I thought I was as sick as I was going to get and then I was you know on my way on the downslope but in fact I was still in the upslope of sickness and so I don't know whether Saturday is realistic or not

I mean I just don't know

The way I feel now I'm not sure if I'm on the upswing and I'm getting better or not

I don't think I'm getting any worse anymore

But I mean even if I'm well by Saturday

I might still be

To drained out to stand on my feet all day

I ordered Chinese food yesterday

I ordered noodles

And two soups

It ain't half of the noodles and one of the soups yesterday

That I was planning to have that other today

And I may still end up doing that I don't know

I guess it's kind of late now

But I just ordered Whataburger's

Which may not be the best plan based on the nausea at all

But I don't know if that's just

What my body said it wanted

I don't always make the best choices what I'm sick

I know several times when I've been sick while this is almost like traditional for me

I start to feel it a little bit better and then I'll just like binge eat a bunch of Cheetos or something and that'll make me feel worse

I think it's just got something to do with comfort food

My hair is like all fallen out

It was man I don't know what was going on with it it I guess it was dirty

But then I was taking showers like two times a day and getting it wet when it was dirty again and again and again and so it had taken on this waxy texture

And so this morning I'm like well you know you need to wash your hair

And I have three shampoos

One is a co-wash that I thought was going to be amazing and when I used it the first couple of times it did seem amazing

But then every time I used it it seemed less amazing

And my hair was starting to look kind of overconditioned and kind of yucky

And so then I ordered this on Amazon

I watched this whole video talking about how you know we've gotten afraid of soaps and that soaps are not bad and that sometimes you have to wash something and yes you shouldn't overdo it but blah blah

So I ordered this giant bottle of SpongeBob SquarePants like kid wash right it's for bubble bath or soap it up or washing your hair or whatever it's like I want to say it suave maybe like baby shampoo kind of formula but not that thick and it smells like strawberries

but it is gigantic like it is inconceivable to me that I would ever use this entire bottle it's gigantic

And the co-wash bottle since you're supposed to use it like all the time and you huge amounts so it's enormous as well

And then I have a third shampoo

I subscribe to ipsy

Not so much because I need a lot of little samples of things

But you know it's fun and you know I can't go to the Ulta and play with the makeup anymore since the pandemic and that's the thing I used to do a lot so I was like well you know it's not too expensive and they have all these like pop-up sales and whatnot where you can buy name brand things for much much cheaper so you know you're paying $13 a month to be a member of a club where you can buy you know an $80 serum for $18 right and then you also get some samples That's kind of the way I'm looking at it because the $13 a month what they send you it's not really maybe worth it to me because I have very idiosyncratic taste and when I joined before I kept telling them hey I don't like this I don't want this blah blah and they would send it to me you know a mascara and a black eyeliner every single bag right

But now they've actually done a pretty good job of giving me what I say I want and I think part of the reason for that is they have as the trend has gotten more skin care instead of makeup although I mean people are still wearing makeup but that's just not where the the content is right now you know

So I don't know

I don't really need a lot of new products now I've pretty much got my routine down to a thing that I like although there are more items that I like

I really wanted to get my skin care routine simplified

But I have found that not only does my skin seem to do better if it gets a little bit of a variety

I also enjoy more products than I would care to use every single day so

But I got this stuff it's one of those like $80 things for 18 it's the best smelling thing in the world

Okay that was a subjective statement obviously

But

Two of my favorite smells that I would buy something because it smelled like one of them maybe or that would sway me towards that product possibly

Black cumin

Blue tansy

This product and the company that makes it is called blunt 

which is adorable 

it's ISOLATE pure CBD balancing face oil

It's got good solid ingredients

And then it's also got the CBD isolate

So if that does anything for your skin which I'm not sure whether it does

But I do not care because I am rubbing it on my face because it smells like heaven

I really like the bottle packaging too it's kind of funky

But I have had a marked reduction in breakouts

Like my skin is getting clearer and clearer and better and better

And I'm still picking but there's less to pick and so I'm not f****** myself up when I'm here all stressed out sick

And there are two things and I don't know if I've told you this either but I'm going to tell you anyway there are two things that have been really helping me with my skin Yes I did tell you this

About the Manuka and tea tree

I told you about that but I don't think I told you about the oil

The other thing

Was I started using Olena oil

And I had used it before

And I noticed that it would calm redness but I didn't particularly notice any difference in breakouts but I don't remember what kind of breakouts I was having at that point and just don't remember enough about the situation when I was using it before I knew it was a valuable good oil and it smelled kind of earthy and it was like yeah okay whatever

But then something made me think

Did this oil was going to do something magic for me

Maybe it was I know I've just lost it I don't know what my thought process was

I know it involved that it's got turmeric

And noni

I know I read something from the founder of the company talking about how that she had made that as her family's like first aid kit oil cuz she's studied native medicines and that was what she put together with native Hawaiian medicine

And that she also said that it cleared up skin like breakouts and stuff

But there may have been some other factors that went into it because I was pretty happy with my routine so I don't know why I decided I needed this but at any rate I started using that and it's just been better and better I mean like I told you that creepiness is gone and

I kind of go back and forth and back and forth but I actually don't think that all those peptides and you know pre-cogens and science science blah blah I am very prone to getting curious and wanting to try those things especially if I read some kind of a political bit that seems to make sense

But my skin tends to respond better to

Simpler formulas

Things that are a little more natural

I belong to that beauty pie that's what it's called I belong to that beauty pie for a while and I ordered a few things from them and it was you know

They are exactly what they say they are

If you listen to what they say they are

If you would go to a department store and buy you know and Armani foundation or a Chanel cream right then what you will get with their line is exactly that sort of texture and scent and you know all of the things that you would want to get from that experience You will get from their products

The thing is is that that is not what I look for from products

All those silicone send

You know they're saying it's green beauty or no maybe they're not saying it's green beauty there maybe they're saying it's clean beauty but you know

Would I am looking at a label if it's like silicone emulsifier silicone text your stabilizer preservative three really impressive sounding ingredients

Well see this is saying to me this doesn't have any beneficial ingredients I mean if it's got less beneficial ingredients then the preservative it better be a very powerful ingredient to be used at like a 1% solution

And I don't want it to have all those things the silicones and stuff cuz I'm okay with something being oily or you know one of the many textures that you get with more green beauty

I mean I got to say

As far as products go

Good Lord

This is an aside from the third shampoo

Okay the third shampoo

Is made by ipsy's house brand which is called refreshments which actually are really good

I mean like I had already done the face wipe part of my life and I decided you know that what I liked the best was honest beauty baby wipes that you know they wouldn't clean makeup off by themselves so they weren't really face wipes but if you were doing an oil cleanse you could then clean the oil off with those so they worked fine

But then ipsy sent me a free sample of their some kind of promotional thing of their face wipes

And I just straight up love them

And I tried the shampoo

It's a strengthening shampoo with like quinoa protein or something

And after the first time I used it I'm like oh I love this My hair looked better than it had looked in years and years and it smells like lavender it's in a kind of a funky patterned tube it's also pretty good size

But today my hair was so dirty

And all of the refreshment stuff meet the highest standards of The most strident Gen z TikToker

So my hair was so dirty I wasn't sure how good at cleaning this wonderful shampoo is

So I just went back to that one

But now my hair is all falling out and it seems

Well I say it seems thinner but it was all waxy or whatever

I kind of like it when it's like that when it's all waxy and it'll stand up crazy and it feels like so much more hair

But also if you just want advice on really good products Pacifica has some really good stuff

They also have some not good stuff

I think the lady who runs their company is a cancer still kind of person

It's and I think what they do

I don't know this for sure

But I think what they do is they just start new lines and start new lines with each new trendy thing that comes along

And then if they don't sell they just stop making it I think that's what happens and I guess that's what everybody does but that's not what everybody does

I have used retinol

And I am no longer certain that retinol really does anything for my skin

I'm thinking maybe it doesn't make the conversions

Because in order for the retinol to be used by your skin it has to be broken down in two steps

And the fact that I've never really had a peel from retinol at all makes me think that my skin just does not make in that conversion

That's why years ago I was surprised that I was having a little bit of appeal from the HPR because I did not think that was supposed to be as strong as retinol and they're like oh we don't know whether it works or not

But that's a derivative of retinol that your body doesn't have to do as much to convert and you know it's maybe not as strong it doesn't not supposed to irritate your skin but it's still supposed to do good things

And it was popular a while ago

In the ordinary had a version

I mean they still do

But I don't know if they were the first ones to have a version I sort of don't think so they were the maybe the first ones to have a huge target audience I don't know

Anyway it was popular and then it kind of fell out of favor but now some people are starting to use it again and Pacifica did this formula

And I think that's what I like about Pacifica when I'm reading the labels I'm like going yeah I see that you know so this cream it has the HPR it's got sunflower seed oil which helps if you have clogged pores it helps unclog them it's a nice neutral oil it's got chaga mushrooms which have all kind of healing stuff

And I have been trying to get a chaga mushroom thing into my routine for years years right

But then this also has melatonin right and I'm like okay well melatonin I don't know what does that do for your skin I don't know

but then it also has quinoa in it right and you know it's I don't know how much keenwood has in it but you know it's decent on the ingredient list I mean everything on the ingredient list is you know pretty good stuff

But when I started using this stuff I was like oh this stuff is great I think this is doing more than all the fancies mancy ratanoid things I was using that I had spent a lot more money on I mean you use this cream up pretty fast cuz it's not a very heavy cream and I'm an old woman that was a joke

I have always had very strange

Well I mean maybe it isn't strange I don't know

I don't really like soapy cleansers that feels I mean sometimes it's nice but I I don't really like them I have not traditionally liked them

That just feels kind of stripping or I don't know not moisturizing enough

Traditionally I have preferred milky cleansers

When I was younger if I used a Milky cleanser that felt good and then I would use a little bit more astringent toner

And that would seem to balance things out nicely and I would after serums became a thing sometimes I would just wear serums and I wouldn't wear a cream

Sometimes I would wear a cream

I feel like I did predominantly when I was growing up where some kind of moisturizer

But I'm having a hard time remembering one specific one

At least after I stopped using that Rose milk

I feel like when I was younger

I was more into texture and whatnot

And I definitely did buy my share of department store products

But I also like the health food store

Then I've got a couple of things from surreal skin care that are really good

And the owner

I can't remember her name right now

She changed the formula

On I think two different products that I liked

And I was all ready to be butt hurt about one of them

Because one was from the experimental lab and the whole point of those is that there works in progress You can't get angry if the formula of one of those changes You could get angry if it's not as good

But the other one was a regular

Like regular cast of players product

And I was like oh no The formula changed

But it's better

It's for sure better

And then I found this stuff on Amazon when I was looking for all my weird medicine cabinet from around the world adventure I found that propolis tincture ointment I guess

And that stuff is amazing I mean it's just amazing

That Mary Kay product that I tried when I was in I don't know second grade maybe

That was basically pink Vaseline I was having a really hard time remembering the word Vaseline

But this is a thinner texture of petrolatum and it has that tincture so it has a little bit of alcohol so I don't know it just has this texture I put like I don't know a half an inch maybe on my finger and I rub it in my hands and then I press it into my face so I'm not like rubbing a huge quantity of vaseline all over my face right but you know if it'll have that texture but it's just a very light coat right

And so on the one hand that holds in whatever goodness I put on before it

As like a slugging layer except not really thick enough to be a slugging layer

But then also that propolis it gives you kind of a glow and it has a lot of trace nutrients and whatever

Well they've changed their logo but I'm pretty sure it was smart balance

But when I really got what the process of hydrogenation was

I decided that that was not really all that healthy

And in fact I'm not sure butter isn't healthy in small amounts

Although I've got to say when I eat butter I'm not sure that I really do eat it in small amounts

But I don't eat it very often

What I mostly use is coconut oil

Or olive oil

Or toasted sesame seed oil

But I do like butter

And I like ghee but butter's easier you know

Also cheaper

But that vegan butter is so delicious

Oh yeah like I was saying margarine tasted more like butter than butter

But I don't think this well it might have added flavor I don't know but it's got pretty good ingredients and it has cultures so it's at least marginally fermented-ish

Anyway I don't buy it very often

But here is how I feel about it

If I had a bagel

I would be expecting to put cream cheese on that actually that's not true I don't use cream cheese I use that neufchatel

When it first came in the grocery store in the f*** I don't know late '70s early '80s we tried it I want to say it was my grand-gran and I and it's got a better texture it's a little less hard schmears better Plus it has a little bit of tartness to it which in my opinion is far superior to regular cream cheese

Okay so now you know how I feel about cream cheese and the specificity with which I define my dairy products

If I had this vegan butter in my house when I was toasting a bagel I would have to think about it to decide whether I wanted to put cream cheese or this vegan butter on it

Now I think cream cheese was still went out

But I would have to think about it

Because there is just that kind of creamy quality to it that butter doesn't really have

I mean it does but it also

You know I don't even know exactly what I'm talking about All I know is this stuff is like amazing

And it's kind of irritating because it doesn't come in like sticks right like you would get sticks of butter or sticks of margarine or a tub of margarine and this would be great if it was in a tub but it's not in a tub it's in one big block

Which is you know I mean it's kind of fun but it's also not really very convenient

But I don't even care

But since it is softer and easier to cut off the thing I mean you use more of it because it's easier to use

So I have not really felt like I could make that my regular everyday butter

Cuz it's much more expensive

But you know then you just enjoy it more when you have it right and you can get it pretty much any time

I mean the imperfect doesn't always have it I don't know always use the imperfect

But I'm pretty sure all the whole foods carry it

And maybe those sprouts too

It kind of depresses me to go into whole foods now

And they'll deliver in 2 hours

So I mean I guess technically I could order it and have it delivered and not have to go in the depressing whole foods and I mean right now I'm sick I'm not going anywhere

So they'll deliver it in 2 hours

But it's 9.99

Which I mean you know if they're bringing you a whole bunch of groceries that would be a deal but like if I want three things that are going to be like I don't know $30 say

Well if I add 9.99 to that that increases the price by 25%

And I mean they've still provided the same service so I'm not saying oh that's highway robbery or whatever so not their fault you didn't order a whole bunch of groceries but I it just doesn't sit right

I mean if I were on DoorDash it's really not any different

Cuz if I order you know a thing at Whataburger that normally cost me $15 and then I order it on DoorDash it cost me $25

Between the fees and the blah blah and the tip and the blah blah it's just what it is we'll bring you something it's going to be 10 bucks

I don't know why I have so much of a problem with the whole foods version

Maybe I just have a problem with whole foods

But I think probably

It's more likely that when I started with the DoorDash

I was not really in my right mind

And I needed comfort food

But it could have bear the thought of interacting with another human being both from a social aspect and from a germ aspect

And I wasn't buying those things regularly enough to know exactly what they were and you know tip wouldn't be included in that and blah blah and so it just isn't as a parent initially how much extra you're paying

and whatever I'm not saying it's not worth it

I mean after I figured out that it was that amount more it didn't stop me from doing it

I think it's just

With the whole foods they were like

Hey will bring you what you want

Will bring it to you in 2 hours

But it's going to cost you

And again I don't know

I've been taking that homeopathic osicillin that's not how you spell it but it's like that but with a lot more letters like more s's and more C's and more else but maybe you know what I'm talking about

But it's just been so long since I had a cold

And it's like

That's a tract

I get congestion and it goes down to my lungs and then I cough and cough and then I lose my voice because all of that is damaged I guess and it's healed enough that it works and stuff maybe not at 100%, but good enough you know but then it's weak and so it doesn't take much

But I haven't haven't lost my voice I'm trying really hard not to cough and I've started taking some elecampaign tincture

It helps get stuff out of your lungs

I took some earlier on

But I didn't want to start a full-on course of it until I was at a certain point because I didn't want to start coughing and coughing and coughing even more trying to get the stuff out if it was in a building phase you know where it was making more and more

But today I don't know I figured I was at a point where it'll probably built up all it was going to so I've been taking the elecampaign today

And I think I do feel it thickening contracting maybe

Now there are things that some people are good at and one thing that would seem like it would not take a great deal of skill to be good at would be hocking a loogie

But I have a lot of trouble expectorating

It's a source of some irritation to me

And it is a skill I have tried and tried and just never been able to accomplish at all it's shameful

No I have coughed and coughed and coughed so much that I've actually sort of thrown up and that's gotten a big ball of sputum out

But that is a f*** ton of drama for like an awfully small amount of biomass

And oh my God where is all this snot coming from

I mean literally I can blow my nose and blow my nose and blow my nose and there's no end to it there's no end to it

And my Kleenex is that save the trees bamboo stuff which is fine for my day-to-day Kleenex needs but my nose is getting pretty sore

And the idea that I would have in the before times just gone to work like this I'm not sick enough to not go to work in order to be sick enough to not go to work you have to be like basically unable to stand

But you know I called Lucy on Sunday and I was like hey and she's like you sound terrible did I already tell you this story

And I was like hey I'm sick

And in the before times I would have just taken a lot of DayQuil and gone to work

And most of the places I've worked have expected that

I'm like and I know that I'm working on Monday so you can have a day off

But I also know

That you got a lot of old people who are at risk in that building and I did not think you would want me to bring sickness

I feel as though I already told you this now

Also I'm pretty sure my wording has changed because I don't remember exactly what I said I'm paraphrasing myself

But she did not want me to come to work so I'm not been working

I have been spending more time in bed

But I do not feel that I'm kidding enough fluids

I'm eating soup

And then yesterday I was just like I want cheese I have a small block of 5-year age cheddar cheese and I want that

And so I ate it

And I'm like you know if you're trying to cut back on the amount of mucus that you have in your system cheese is really not the thing to eat

Cheese facilitates mucus

At best

At worst it causes mucus they were really disgusting process that I could go into if you like

That was a lie though because I don't really remember the process

But I was like no no I want this cheese I'm going to eat this cheese I don't want to hear about your nasty mucus process about pus in the dairy the mastitis and all that I know what you're talking about I don't remember the details very well but I remember it enough but I don't care this is organic and it's cheese

So there's that

And I did have an Apple one day because I was like oh Apple a day keeps the doctor away

Hahaha hahaha

And pumpkin English muffins

Although I got to say pumpkin English muffins

Probably the addition of the pumpkin changes the texture so they're not really much like pumpkin English muffins

I think of that puffy you know full of holes texture as being like really essential to what makes something an English muffin and these were delicious they are good as whatever they are but they are not English muffins

My vegan butter sits on top it doesn't gently go down into the crevices in the English muffin but it's okay cuz they're thick enough that you could soak up the vegan butter off the plate I love this vegan butter it's mykanos

That might not be right

It's kind of pricey

But I got a box from imperfect Thanksgiving week

To get all that pumpkiny goodness and whatever

And they had that vegan butter

And I had to get it

It's got cultured something

And it's got coconut oil and I don't know I don't know how they do it but it's like it melts at a lower temperature than regular butter which is always a source of irritation with my toasted materials

And it has that specifically cultured flavor

That makes it slightly more buttery tasting than butter

I guess maybe this just occurs to me

Remember margarine

I mean I think I stopped using margarine like 20 years ago

Actually I stopped using like regular commercial margarine longer ago than that but I used that what's it called

Smart oil

No that's not it hang on this is going to bother me I got to find out

I have a very bad cough

And I'm very congested

And I've been getting like chills or cold flashes or something

Like I'm not sure what the temperature in the house is right now but I'd say it's probably around 70 which isn't cold

But I am cold I've got the heater on

What's the cat loves He's there right in front of it

He loves heater fan

And this thing is really a good heater it's very small it's I mean it's like 10 ft away from me but it's heating up the whole room

So I don't have to turn on the central heat and get the whole house really hot so that when I stop being chilled I'm then have no place I can go to be comfortable because the house is hot and then spend all the extra money for the central heat and central heat I mean it cost more than the central air in an absolute sense but you know you just don't need to use it very much

I had the fan on blowing the air from outside in and that was perfectly comfortable but I just looked outside and it's actually hotter outside than it is in here and very humid I don't know if it's supposed to rain again or what

But like last night I was so like teeth chattering right like so cold

And I was like well I could take a hot shower

And that will make me warm while I'm taking the hot shower

If I can get over the chill or the cold flash or whatever the f*** it is in the hot shower then I can get out and be comfortable cuz it's not cold

But if I can't

I'm likely to be colder when I get out of the hot shower

But it worked out for me

But I haven't had a fever

97.2

goodnight sweetheart I love you very much 💋

goodnight sweetheart I love you very much 💋

So

if I'm not legit doing deep work

something I'm coming out the other side

then

I'm a little afraid that I'm losing my mind a little

And then

sometimes I feel like we're fighting

but I don't always understand why

And then

I stress about it

and I'm like frozen in my tracks

any dance can be interpreted in a variety of ways

also

maybe you pushed my buttons a few times

and if I've got buttons we haven't met yet

probably you do to

If I feel like I've been doing some deep work this year

Does that seem legit

Because from my point of view

This year has been some sort of a shamanic experience where you go down into the cave and the beasts rip you apart and then you're reconstructed

And

I don't feel reconstructed I feel like I've been

All through

Just one after another problematical psychological self-discovery or issue or whatever I mean I just feel like I was wrecked

I'm out of battery I'm going to have to come back to this

I have a bad cough today

I feel like I may be getting sick

I feel like I have a lot of things to say

I just can't seem to say them

I was so sure

I'd have something this morning

goodnight sweetheart I love you very much 💋

Did I describe the wonton soup

I know I described the way the soup used to be

But I don't know

If I describe the way the soup is

The matzah ball soup

My main problem with it was that it had too much salt and too much spice

But like not in a good way

But I didn't have a problem with the texture like I said and

Although there is a very consummate quality to their broth and I want to call it anxious no not anxious anxious

Unctuous

I wasn't sure if that was the right word so I looked it up and sort of

It did have a very oily quality to it but I don't necessarily find that to be unpleasant in a comfort food soup

But unctuous has kind of a negative connotation of it said oily or soapy

The reason why I like and say I don't think matzo ball soup could replace for me wanton soup which is my kind of go-to I'm feeling really sick or I've had a really rough day or whatever That's like my go-to soup

But that Chinese broth it's like there's a way in which it's both a bone broth and a consummate you know which maybe the matzo ball soup is too but there's a way in which that wanton soup broth is so like just core

Like it's a level of perfection that could be matched but never surpassed

I can't believe I used to put soy sauce in it because that totally covers up all the delicacy the nuance of the broth

And then it has like a little bit of greens actually I think this place that I like the most doesn't have the big bok choy leaves and I prefer those but just the complete package on this soup is I don't know it's got very thinly sliced cabbage so it's like translucent web of vegetable matter through the broth and then it's got the dumplings

And usually what I do

So let it cool off a little bit and it's in this like quart container and then I basically drink the soup and fish the dumplings out with chopsticks

And again these dumplings are just literally they've got some kind of meat which again it's probably pork but it might be a blend for all I know of pork and chicken or I don't know I just don't know but it's very simply seasoned very smooth meat and the dumplings are just a great texture they're soft but they're a little bit chewy but I don't know it's just the most not no frills minimalist wonton soup experience

And apparently that is what does it for me

It's like that chicken broth that's like when you drink it you feel health entering your body you know you've got that kind of bone broth with the consomme so you feel like you're getting fortified from the bones of the chicken and the meat of the chicken you know I mean it's just like essence of chicken

And that cabbage that web of cabbage I don't know it's I just love the soup so much 

So it's been cold for a little while now

It's not quite as cool today

But there's been enough cold that I'm now fully pumpkin mode

And I started to go get a pumpkin spice latte but then I remembered I don't like pumpkin spice lattes

I thought I did

But either they changed or I changed

So I'm like no let me not do that

But instead

In my imperfect produce box

I ordered pumpkin some kind of other brand Pop-Tart type thing toaster pastries there we go toaster pastries pumpkin toaster pastries

And

Pumpkin English muffins

And

Pumpkin pie

And

Butternut squash ravioli

Last year they had this stuff that's like puffy bread it's like croissant bread or something that was pumpkin flavored and it was like you didn't have to put butter on it All you had to do was toast it because it had so much butter in it that it didn't need any further buttering

Unfortunately this year they did not have that

They opened up a Katz's right around the corner from me

I mean it's a little too far to walk

But it's definitely neighborhood

And honestly I don't know why they didn't put one there sooner maybe just because they've had a house of pies there and IHOP

House of pies is I guess a local chain they have two or three locations

And it's like a full-on diner but they also have an enormous assortment of pies

I have not been to House of pies I don't know maybe 20 years maybe not quite 20 years but when I was a kid it was a thing

It's open 24 hours it still is open 24 hours it has his IHOP although it may not be now they may have changed that now

But there used to be a lot of 24-hour places to eat and then there were a lot more places that were open extra late on the weekends

And how's pies and you could go and order food or you could go and just order like pie and coffee or pine hot chocolate or something like that so it was an old school place to go for you know after work work in the night shift

And their pies are pretty good

They are not artisanal

They are old school

So like if you're on the road and you stop in a small town and there is a diner that has one of those rotating things with pies it is that kind of pie

If it is meringue or cream it is 3 in of meringue or cream

And I know pie crust is supposed to be this delicate flaky business but most of the time I prefer a little hardier crust

And IHOP I have amazing memories of IHOP you know with all the flags and the peaked roof with the skylights and my aunt Joan telling me that it was supposed to look like a Swiss chalet and then like the whole kind of I don't know Peter Sellers pink Pan 3 translation of Swiss chalet for me you know

Steak and egg kitchen closed down years ago but steak and egg kitchen was great it had kind of a dive bar quality about it I think those were all across the country I don't think that was just a local thing but it had a really good jukebox I mean I was in several different locations and they all had really good jukeboxes and it was in all these shades of dark brown and burnt orange and I don't know it was just heaven

There are waffle houses and also toddle houses and also dairy Queen's within the greater Houston area but none of those were things that I really had much experience with at all I mean okay there was a dairy Queen that was not that far from us One of the places we lived in spring Branch

I'm pretty sure it's still there well it was pre-pandemic and it just seems like kind of a random place for a dairy Queen

But it was never like a place that we went as like a special thing you know it was just another place so there was McDonald's or there was Wendy's or there was Burger King or there was Long John silver's Taco Bell

Or there were local places

Like princess

Or Lucky Burger

Or at one point in the '70s there was this hamburger place oh oh what was the name of that place hang on there was another local chain called hamburgers by gourmet I forgot about that Man that place was great it was great

But in the '70s there was also just one place it wasn't like a chain it was just like a hamburger place down the street from me and it was called Raul's brass rubbing and they didn't have french fries but they did have baked potatoes You get hamburger and baked potato

And then Whataburger is

Well Whataburger isn't a local chain

It's a I guess I would call it a regional chain

Although maybe it's national now I don't know

And Whataburger

Is just objectively the best it's like a fast food hamburger in some way that is whatever satisfies the fast food craving

The packaging the decor is orange and white

And maybe there is some brown sometimes

It is

Texas

Okay so the packaging is bright

And there's something about Whataburger that is like classic

So it's not like it looks old school

And it's not like it looks you know new and styled

My Whataburger

It has these photographs these large blown up photographs on the walls

Are they a history of this particular Whataburger franchise

Don't know

Are they from the history of Whataburger itself

Don't know

I'm pretty sure they have little signs on them that say what they are

But you know they're on the wall and they're booths so unless you're sitting at that booth there's no real smooth way to get up and read it without you know being up in somebody's business

So I just kind of said you know I don't need to know I just love the pictures

There's one of a whole like little league baseball team sponsored by Whataburger

And there's another one I don't know what it is but it's some guy in it reminds me of the fountainhead or Atlas shrugged or you know one of those ayn rand kind of larger than life character against I don't know I don't even know what it's a picture of I just know when I look at it it's like

Whatever

One day I went in that Whataburger on the way home from my mom's pretty early in the day like they were really still expecting people to get breakfast foods but I was going to order a double meat double cheese Whataburger

But she the girl at the counter she had on the uniform right it's like these dark brown matte Jersey kind of pants right and

And the shirt was I think just a t-shirt maybe not maybe it was a button-down shirt that was orange and white striped I'm not sure because she had on this vest

And I don't know why she had the best maybe that's a part of the uniform they have if they are working the fry area

I don't know because I don't think the vest was zipped up maybe it was

I'm botching the story The point isn't so much what the outfit was that she was wearing exactly as that the way she was wearing it

She looked like a model for a shoot for some really like quirky bent fashion magazine

Like you know the kind I'm talking about right I know that's probably not something you read

But you know Vogue or Harper's bazar or you know those mainstream magazines when they have a quirky fashion shoot it's going to be you know exotic or historical or geographic or something that makes it quirky

But some of the more what would have been called hipster maybe a few years ago but now I didn't hear anyone ever say hipster

They might have a fashion shoot with women working in a fast food environment and this particular Whataburger it's really I mean it's hard to put my finger on exactly

It's an old building it's got the classic shape and it's got traditional textures and those beautiful large black and white photographs but

Then the work area

It's very

Photogenic

It's all black and stainless steel

There might be a little bit of other color

But you know you're if you're in the customer area it's all very light and open

And if you're in the worker area even though it is actively open like I could walk back there I would never do that it's so demarcated You know the floor goes from tile to like stained cement or something

All the surfaces in the entire I mean like everything you can see

Looks clean

And there's just something about the way the lighting is it goes from bright in the whole area to this area that's actually kind of dark but then very brightly lit in the areas where people are doing things and then behind the register area there's this wall that's black maybe it has some maybe it has some wood grain or something I don't know and it's got a reflective surface and it just I don't know

So she's not like super tall or super thin or like super shapely or super sexy she's not super anything except her aura

But with her aura it's like her clothes are moving like there's a light breeze

And her skin is glowing like

Skin glowy reasons

And I right there saw that outfit

Like just tweeked a notch

And my whole you know fall runway collection

I've never had an experience like that at a McDonald's for instance

But I mean as aww shucks as I'm being about it

They got merch

You can buy Whataburger hats and stuff like that online

But then in the grocery store I don't know if they have it where you are but at the grocery store here you can get all the condiments including that goddamn delicious spicy ketchup

So I mean

Whataburger

Okay how did I get on to Whataburger I was trying to talk about Katz's

And then I got onto House of pies and IHOP

Okay well I really liked all that stuff about Whataburger but I didn't intend to say any of that I don't know why I said any of that

They opened up a Katz's around the corner from me

I guess a little closer to the house of pies then to the IHOP but they're all three very close to me now

But it didn't go to Katz's

I ordered a DoorDash from Katz's

I ordered matzo ball soup

And I ordered hummus with bagel chips

Except their hummus said something like pecan hummus and I'm like okay I don't know what that means does that mean it's got pecan oil in it does that mean it has some pecans mixed into it but it still has chickpeas

I just don't really know what I'm ordering but I'm intrigued

And then the other thing it was with whipped feta cheese so it's this little container and it's like half this creamy stuff that I mean I ate it and it was delicious but I don't know if it had chickpeas in it or not

It was creamy

I did not get the sense that I was eating pecan butter

I've had pecan butter

My sweet potato recipe

Has sweet potatoes and dried apricots and pecan butter so I'm pretty familiar with its flavor and texture

But I did not get the feeling that that was what I was eating

I also had no big awareness of chickpeas

So I don't know what I ate but it was delicious

And the whipped feta was also delicious

And bagel chips are delicious when you get the not quite stale but somehow dead state bagel chips at the grocery store or something

But these are like housemade bagel chips

With like a garlicky butter sauce on them and then baked or something

Super delicious

The matzo ball soup though

Did not do it for me

It was very very salty

And it had a lot a lot of poultry seasoning

And it it seemed very much like you know dried poultry seasoning

Or like bouillon

But they're talking about their consummee

And it just I mean the texture was like consummee

But the flavor of it just was not

And I know matzo ball soup is a very individual thing so like everybody's matzo ball soup has whatever their particular secret to soup is and some people are better at that than others and some people probably use a a boxed mix

But I'm afraid

That any version of matzo ball soup that I could imagine

Would not supplant that wonton soup that you can get pretty inexpensively from many many Chinese restaurants

Some are better than others

And some have like a fancy kind that they'll have that has a lot of noodles and a lot of this and that and the other thing and I don't prefer that

I mean it used to be that when you got the fancy wonton soup you got that great broth you got some kind of green bok choy leaves or something You got the wonton noodles themselves stuffed with whatever is in wanton noodles I think it's pork and then you got some sliced meat that was like red around the edges and was probably also pork

Well that used to be like kind of the standard

But I don't think I've had wonton soup any place that was like that for more than 20 years

but there's a little hole in the wall place around the corner from me

And it does not have the best of everything right there's one place that you can order egg rolls from and the egg rolls are so big you almost can't fit them in your mouth with shrimp and so much chopped cabbage I mean they're just amazing they're the best egg rolls I've ever had anywhere

That's ambassador Chinese restaurant

But this other place that I'm talking about 7 Asian

They don't have good egg rolls

I mean they have some little Vietnamese egg rolls that are pretty tasty

But they're really little and they don't have the chopped cabbage and I really like that chopped cabbage

With the crispy fried and that chopped cabbage with a little bit of celery and a little bit of carrot and it's you know it's cooked it's hot but it's not like mushy at all it's still very crunchy it's crunchy and then the fried crust is crunchy and so good so good

But 7 Asian

They don't have that

What they have

Is really good and reasonably priced shrimp lo mein it is like a serious comfort food that shrimp lo mein and they have cheese puffs

They're like that stuff that you sometimes order that's crab rangoon only it doesn't have the crab it's it's got some cream cheese and maybe a little bit of mozzarella or some other cheese like that so it's just cheese and it's not particularly savory but it's not particularly sweet it's a really nice it's just really nice the fried and then that creaminess

And on my door dash here

It's got a feature where you can do an add-on

Without having to pay additional fees except there are additional tipping

So I'm not an early adopter of the add-ons I mostly don't add on

I always look through the add-ons but I don't get them except every once in a while

But I'm not certain how they decide which are the things that add on cuz there's bunches and bunches and bunches of them and you would think it would always be the same things because it's you know whatever's in some certain parameter but it doesn't seem to be sometimes they're just a few and then sometimes there's like 150 things and it's like come on I've got like 5 minutes to look at this actually I think you probably have more like 8 minutes to look at it maybe you have as much as 10 minutes to look at it but that is not nearly long enough for me

But I always look at them and I keep like hoping that you know I would order from the one place and they would have an add-on that I could pick up at the other place

But that never

Happens

it's like

brand new I love you

So I finished all the only murders in the building

I really like that show

But more than that

Those apartments are great

What would it be like to live in a place like that

And then bunnies wall block with those bright flowers like who did that back in the '80s Mario Buata

I think the Mario's right but I don't think I have the last name right he was super famous he did all those intense colored chintzes

I never really was that into those they didn't make a lot of sense to me but I don't know it worked great and bunny's apartment

And that girl

Selena Gomez

I swear I feel like I've already seen her in something and loved her and like she's someone that I love

But I looked her up and I don't think I've seen any of her stuff

So am I conflating her with somebody else

And if so who

It's very disconcerting

And it gets dark too early now I don't like that

If it is 6:00 and it is dark that is just wrong

Perhaps you're going to tell me that that is the way it has always been the whole time I've been alive on this planet but I'm going to tell you that it is just not possible that every year this happens and I rail against it and it just continues to happen

And maybe that's something I'm feeling more generally that sense that things that must have always been some particular way

They just don't feel connected to previous times it's like I'm seeing things and I'm saying okay this is a cyclical thing so you know how is it that you're experiencing this as though you didn't know

It's like some sort of

Well I used to have this line

Patter really

And I had some sort of weather amnesia or I couldn't continue to live here

You know

It's meant to be kind of a non-threatening joke

It's not exactly self-deprecating

But it is sort of a personal roast

But at the same time

It's sort of a relatable thing you know like hey you know what it's like that every year you know the super hot weather comes back and you're like oh Jesus I forgot you know

If you live here you have that

And weather amnesia is you know not exactly what it is but you know kind of is it's it's not cutting-edge funny it's pattern you know

But that sort of feeling like weather amnesia getting dark early amnesia

Interacting with other people amnesia

I'm feeling a little disoriented generally

One of the things that I have

An issue I have

Is kind of a lack of being able to really connect with what I want

What do you want to do I don't know what do you want to do it's all fine whatever

You know what I mean I don't have

It's going to sound crazy to say I don't know what I like I don't know what I want

Because I spend a lot of time deciding exactly what I want in a variety of different ways

So even I can't explain to you how it is that I just don't know so much about myself

So I've been just kind of trying to connect with try to notice

happy now

I enjoy this or that thing

Or this or that thing is something I enjoy to look at

What I mean is I'm trying to make an awareness of those things as I'm experiencing them and like say it aloud or something to reinforce it in my mind but I might have to start writing it down because I can't think what those things have been

I still haven't found my hat

But now I'm trying to find out about Michael Harding watercolors

Supposedly they sell them at Jackson's

Only I can't look it up on the Jackson's website

If I look up Michael Harding watercolors or Michael Harding watercolor sets or a specific color

It doesn't bring anything up it's a zero results

But then if I look up Michael Harding watercolors it'll bring up those little boxes you know pictures and whatever that are from different websites that have that thing and one of them is Jackson's and it's a set city night

Yeah City night set

If I click on that set it'll take me to that set on the Jackson's website and if I happen to be logged on to my account at the Jacksons website then if I click add to cart then I'll add it to my cart and I can check out and buy it and they'll ship it to me and I can play with it

But I still can't look it up on their site

And they supposedly have a range of like 120 colors or I don't know 250 or some number between those two numbers I don't know I'm pretty sure it's more than 120 colors

But part of the reason why I'm so fascinated is that I saw The Italian watercolorist on YouTube that I watch she did a review for the city night set and I was like well I do not know that these are necessarily the colors I would be particularly drawn to

But I was just something about the way they painted out and the way she painted with them and the way they interacted with the paper and the water and the brush and everything it just it seemed very different

And then I saw an interview with Michael Harding actually I think I watched several interviews but they weren't like you know a journalist is interviewing him trying to break him it was it was like hey here's a guy who we sell his art supplies so maybe you want to know a little bit about him

And apparently he's had his oil paint line forever and he's been trying to come up with the watercolor line for 20 years but they hadn't gotten it right yet or whatever I don't know

It sounded more like that he had always wanted to do a watercolor line as well because and he was talking about and this is absolutely right but it's not something that gets talked about a lot but but like the old Masters right before they would do their giant fresco or painting on giant panels or canvases or you know whatever the big production thing they would do their sketch painting so they would you know see how the colors looked and you know get the blocking and everything it's a sketch but you know you're not doing a drawing you're doing a painting so the sketch for the painting should be in paint right and watercolor is essentially the same thing as oil except in oil paint your mulling the pigment into oil but in watercolor you're doing a much lighter binding with some gum Arabic and some glycerin and you know a couple other things depending upon your recipe you know

So he was talking about that he was interested in doing a watercolor line just because he's a paint guy you know and the way there's a way in which you know that would just be a thing

But you know it's not like watercolor has been wildly popular this entire time and it's expensive to launch a new brand of something

So it's not like it took him 20 years to develop this line of watercolors

It's more like it took 20 years for everything to come together to be at the right place at the right time

And you know the pigments well you know maybe he would find a pigment no kitty no

Maybe he would find a pigment that he thought would make a really beautiful watercolor but not such a beautiful oil or I don't know at any rate it was a process

And he was saying that when he paints he paints his oils like watercolors and his watercolors like oils

And I'm like what the f*** does that mean

But then I watched the video again where she's painting the Italian watercolor artist she's painting with the city night set and she's trying to make some mixes and the way she was mixing them it didn't look like the way you usually mix watercolors together it looked like the way you mix oil paints together you know and I was like okay well she's just doing that but it's like you know manipulating the little bits of pigment I don't know it was

So I'm not so crazy about the orange

And the funny thing is is I was also before I realized I was going to get the Michael Harding I saw a set of five in grams called shades of Summer and it was just scream in my name I have not been super happy with other m Graham paints that I have gotten everybody says it's like the best brand of paint but I have had issues

But anyway I don't want to get all into a compare and contrast with Michael Harding and m Graham That's not what I want to do so let's leave aside m Graham for right now

So this Michael Harding set it has this mostly opaque color called soft yellow light and it's kind of like a buff titanium color

Or a very pale naples yellow color it's just barely yellow kind of creamy colored warm

But pretty neutral but not white

And it's intriguing I've never really used a color like that I mean I've used some light yellows but I've never used like a buff titanium or a white or something in watercolor and even the Naples yellows I've had have not been pale like this One of the qor sets had a Naples yellow that was I don't know it was like black and white and something not actual Naples yellow

And that color just made me kind of uncomfortable

So I don't know the jury still out on this color for me

And I was kind of hoping to see more sets cuz I think he made more sets but like I said Jackson's only just had this one and I only seem to be able to get to it through some sort of weird you know wardrobe

But the second color is a very intense yellow like I'm really surprised I like it because it is really really intense and kind of unnatural but it's got this like radioactive glow to it and when I saw it on the video I was like man I might have to have that color then it's got an orange which they call permanent orange but is sometimes called pyrolle Scarlet  possibly I didn't spell that correctly

And I mean it is orange it's a red orange but it's orange

Then the next color

Kobalt teal

Really you spell Cobalt with a k

But it's an extremely granulating cobalt teal so while Cobalt teal is a color that I like and I have it in several different brands and they're all really pretty

And this one is maybe not my favorite color out of the whole bunch cuz it's made with PG50 and therefore maybe a little bit greener than some of them that are made with I want to say PB28 but that might not be right I mean I'm kind of a nerd about these pigments but it's possible that PB28 is oh

I was about to say it's possible that PB28 is cobalt blue but in fact that would not be a contradiction because Cobalt teal can either be made from cobalt green or cobalt blue so that makes sense but then I've also got PB 36 in my mind and maybe that cerulean blue I'm not certain but now I'm pretty sure like 75% sure that PB28 is cobalt blue anyway

So the yellow is very intense The orange is very intense lots and lots of pigment very bright The cobalt teal is like kind of delicate and I don't know it just doesn't seem like it's from the same galaxy as the first two and then the fifth color

Indian throne blue no in dandrone blue no Indian throne blue

Indanthrone blue

Pretty much every brand has some version and somehow more than one version of this color PB60

It's dark

And it's not especially red-leaning or green leaning it's a pretty middle of the road blue so if you're only going to have one blue on your pallet I mean and then throne PB60 would be an idiosyncratic choice but it will work for color mixing

But a lot of them have a big drawing shift so you paint them down and they're like this beautiful velvety intense blue

And then it dries and it's More like an okay but not really anything to write home about a little bit too dark blue

And I've been having a lot of trouble with blue choices

Because I'm thinking about it from two different perspectives One perspective is within each brand what are the limited palette of colors that I want to represent that brand for me like when I'm painting with shminka my schminka palette what are the blue or blues that I use for that

And in schmika they have two PB60s they have one that's processed a little brighter that they call delft Blue and they have one that they process very dark that they call dark blue

And they're both really pretty colors

But they both get kind of dull when they dry

And of course with shminka I don't have to actually make my choices from there regular line paints I've got the deep sea indigo and the deep sea green which is more of a green blue and this beautiful I can't remember which one it was maybe it was tundra blue maybe it was forest blue I don't know it's like an ultramarine blue but a really dark one with like a burnt umber blended into it or something so that the blue and the brown are together and it's it's very beautiful

In fact if I'm going to pick

I think what I would pick is there indigo and their pains gray bluish

Because the pains grant bluish is really blue and it's really dark and it's really pretty but they're indigo is and I mean it's probably the same no they're indigo

It's not super light fast because it includes the synthetic indigo pigment so whereas a lot of indigos are made with phthalo blue of one sort or another

But then the other way of looking at it is on the mixed paint palette where it's not

This is the shameka experience or this is the whatever experience but instead it's like this is the All Stars palette so it has to be a functional team

You can get different effects with different kinds of paints paints that have very different qualities

But in the All-Star team of paints can you have Michael Hardy play with other paints

Maybe

I mean for sure that delicate Cobalt teal would work with other paint maybe

But the blue I don't know it's like next level

It is like the yellow only a very dark blue and there's something very aggressive about a dark blue that's that intense but like not even for a second going to dip into the black

You don't look at this and say is that a blue or is that a black not at all it is blue it is not violet it is not purple it is just blue blue blue blue but dark

I don't know I feel like this might just be the most beautiful blue ever

And then the sixth color is called Vine Black but it doesn't really look black to me I mean I guess in the mass tone it does but it's a pretty warm black and it's really more like gray it's a light black maybe it's a transparent black maybe

But when I first saw it painted out something about the granulation and the grittiness of it it just looked really beautiful and I can't explain and I've never been somebody who was interested in painting with black paint You mix your blacks so you get a more vibrant color or a less dead color but this one I don't know I could just see doing some studies with like maybe just this color or maybe just this color mixed with several other colors I mean I guess this is in a palette with five other colors but I don't really see mixing any of these colors so much with it I don't know but it's it's a good colors for night for city nightscapes it is really

I've been mostly taking Uber to work at the art shop

I can't really explain why

Calling a car

Being driven to work

Not having to stress during the drive but to just be able to relax

But then this last time it was supposed to rain all day and that made me very nervous

But the thing is what I've been doing is taking an Uber and then my mom comes and picks me up and that gets her to the studio cuz she's spending all this money for her fancy studio which is now all fixed up and pretty with all of her supplies and whatnot but she doesn't go

Whatever in any rate in my mind it was I take the Uber to work and it's nice and comfortable and I can relax on the drive there and then I just go there and I mean I'm helping them out you know I'm not doing it because it's a whole bunch of money I thought I'd be fun

And it's kind of fun

Vicky as I think I mentioned before is totally a boomer

She's also very no nonsense

Turse brusque whatever

She went to the school hard knocks well actually no she has a college degree but she also went to the School of hard knocks and You know uphill both ways

But I've known Vicky pretty much my entire life and so whereas if she was a person I was just now meeting and she had this personality I think it would be somewhat difficult

But you know she's just Vicky

And it's ironic

Maybe ironic is what it is

That some of the things that Vicki does

That are you know generational or whatever

Some of those things when my mom does them it irritates me

And it's not like when Vicky doesn't it doesn't irritate me but there's a way in which it's just not important

I mean if she wants to think these things

That doesn't actually invade my world you know she's a separate person over there

And what she thinks and feels and whatever

But I like her

The way you used to be able to like people that believe things that were radically different than you

Anyway yesterday I made an r

I made a sign that said sharpeners

I individually tagged all the smaller pallet knives

I tagged some canvas boards with their size because for some reason they didn't have that printed on the back for that particular brand

I changed around display

Organized packed away and labeled some overstock

I painted some display samples

I checked in an order I did that first I almost forgot

I helped some customers

They were a few people who came in to pick things up for final projects

It rained all day

But not very hard

Like barely what you could call rain

And there were some parents who came in with their kids just to have something to do

I don't mean like two parents and two kids came in as a family unit I mean like a father came in with his daughter and they looked around a mother came in with her son still kind of in a fuzzy pajama outfit.

I've been dreaming that I'm taking these tests

I'm not particularly stressed about them

I don't seem to think that I'm doing poorly in any way

I just don't understand why I'm doing so much testing what is that about

I feel as though stuff is happening around me like I'm the center of well no that's overly dramatic I was going to say like at the center of a hurricane in the eye of the storm everything seemed calm but they were strange noises in the distance

Right that's very dramatic and I don't really mean it like that at all but

Maybe I'm not scrolling through Twitter as much maybe I'm doing something differently so I'm seeing different things in my feed and not getting as much news

I mean I don't know

I just feel as though things are happening and I don't know what they are

So I'm seeing things that look like reactions to things but I don't know what the things are that are being reacted to

Or I'm finding out about them later or having more trouble finding out about them or something I'm not certain exactly what's going on

I'm not even sure that something is going on

I might just be having an awareness

Of something going on

That isn't based in reality

And then also

I'm not sure I knew what I was doing

When I agreed to work at the art shop

I feel as though

I might be making friends

And I'm having some strange feels about that

I love you very much sweetheart 💋

goodnight sweetheart I love you very much 💋

Since I have Hulu now

I'm bingeing

Only Murders in the Building

it's so good 

goodnight sweetheart I love you very much 💋

the Automat in my head

is animated by Peter Max

and

when you open the little windows

it's all conceptual

not

food

I love you

I'm going to bed sweetheart 💋

goodnight sweetheart I love you very much 💋

So valour, apparently

at fifty five

In the '80s

I thought velor was cheap

In the '90s

I thought velor was crass

In the 2000s

I didn't notice it at all

Oh I see what I did there

Decade

Decade

Sounds like decade

Really two decades

But I got these jackets

Ever since I was in high school

I have liked to wear a certain type of jacket

A lot of times it gets called a cardigan

But actually it's a little bit more like a kimono

I got these hapi jackets at the Renaissance festival One was the great wave

You know the one I mean I can't remember the artist I could look it up

And that jacket might be the first time I ever saw that image I'm uncertain

The other was a tiger

Okay whatever I'm not sure how much of this is really necessary for the story I'm trying to tell

But I got these jackets toppers whatever you want to call them several years ago now their Isaac mizrahi and they're pima cotton

And then

Got a couple more jackets that were on sale that were Isaac mizrahi and they were like

a very very light kind of a sweater fabric

And I loved those

So then I saw these like final sale no return super ultra mega discount I don't remember what it was called but they were making a big deal about it and they were like not just one size too big but three sizes too big right and they were velor and one of them is a dark green but not really like a foresty green it's more of a blue green green blue The other one is a burgundy wine red color

And to unpack that a little bit My mother thought I looked good in Burgundy and forest green and she didn't want to buy me any clothes that were not those colors

I wanted to wear black

Punctuated with things like a red and turquoise and white and black jacket with the great wave on it right

Except maybe I hadn't quite found that yet but I was headed that direction you know

And my mother wanted me to wear burgundy and forest green velor

So I'm like you know you got these first two Isaac mizrahi jackets and you love them and have love them and continue to love them

You have the second two that you are coming back to again and again finding yourself really loving in the last I don't know not quite a year that I've had them

So then I saw these two and they're like huge oversize which I kind of enjoy and is kind of coming back in right

But then there you know this historical problematical fabric and these avoided colors so it's like how good are you Isaac can you make jackets that are so good that with all this baggage they can still be enjoyable

For $17 I'm willing to find out

Well it was $17 for each of them

But that's still pretty cheap

And I started off wearing them around the house as kind of like dressing gowns

But then it got a little bit cooler and I needed a light very light jacket and they're velor but they're they don't feel like that they feel great they don't feel cheap at all they feel

Great

And the colors

They're not burgundy and forest green

The red and the pink are both punched up too much for it to just be like burgundy

And the green it's dancing on the edge of do you want to call it blue

It got cold

It's been in the '40s and '50s

It's f****** freezing

But instead of busting out my heavier jackets or maybe even my coat

I've been wearing these velor things

I'm wearing one now in the house

Kitty

is

Home

and

of course he won't eat

he hasn't eaten since Sunday morning

I think he wants dry food

but

he can't have it

he likes dry better

Kitty seems so much better this morning!

They left his cone off

and cleaned him up a little more

he has his catheter out

he didn't seem doped up

although I think they might still be giving him something

for pain

or to make him less aggressive

the plan is for him to come home today

I told him he has to pee

and he pretty much jumped right in the box

but

he doesn't like being watched

so I went ahead and left

because he was overstimulated and starting to bite anyway

but he got some good skritches

now I'm at a breakfast restaurant

I decided that that sounded good

I haven't taken any Tylenol or Ibuprofen for a couple days now

I had this fear that my nausea was

liver toxicity

seems unlikely

but

I've been taking those things a couple times a day for months now

and the hip is much better

but

it all hurts more

without pain killers

go figure

Also

I'm bullish on Automats 

goodnight sweetheart I love you very much 💋

Oh and I forgot

I haven't been drinking coffee

Because I was so anxious all the time and I just thought if I stopped drinking coffee for a while it would kind of chill me out

But then this tea that I'm drinking it's got this very fortifying quality you know

And then I've been mixing Sheila sheet into it God damn it 

shilijit

But then I've also been you know kind of brewing it up semi-warm cuz I brew up some fresh and I pour it over some that's gotten that I've mostly drunk and I'm drinking it in stages between hot and cold I mean sometimes I just make a cup and I drink it I very rarely finish before it gets cold because I don't know why it's a problem for me

I make a cup of tea and it's too hot

So I'm waiting for it to cool

But then somehow I miss the period of time where it's the temperature I want it to be and I start drinking it when it's just slightly less that temperature you know

So now I've gotten into this thing where it's kind of like it doesn't matter what temperature it is there are a range of temperatures that I find extremely enjoyable but I like it at every temperature

And that's made things easier

But then I'm not making iced tea I'm just making this one kind of tea and drinking it sometimes hot sometimes cold you know we'll never cold cuz I don't put ice in it well okay sometimes I make a cup of tea and I pour it into my glass that I'm going to be drinking it when it's colder cooler room temperature whatever but I'm going to carry it to bed and it's not a cup of tea it's a glass of tea so sometimes I put some ice into it to cool it enough that I don't burn my fingers as I carry it but I don't ever make it as iced tea is what I mean

I got this stuff

It's called like pineapple chia detox or something

It's got chia seed and some other sprouted seeds and some prebiotics some enzymes it's just like if you always got some probiotics too it's just like if you were going to make a thing to take everyday to help your gut health that's what this is

Now I think they're trying to sell it as some fancy thing cuz pineapple chia detox you know is in what way is it really a detox

I mean insofar as if you have fiber floating through your system like that it's able to capture some free floating yuck

But I mean it's kind of a detox in the same way that eating instant oatmeal would be a detox you know it's not really a detox

Detox is just a sexy word I guess

But I'm like hey that has good ingredients that's all the stuff I want

So I ordered it

Because my guts have just not been right

And maybe there are hormones I had something semi explained to me recently somewhere on the interwebs I'm sure that made it sound as though You have hormones or bits of hormones floating around that aren't maybe where they're supposed to be or aren't at the right levels and so they're functioning as a toxin in your system instead of functioning properly

I may not have gotten that quite right I don't know but that's the impression I got and so I was like well

I mean if stuff's not running smoothly

I figure you know that's fundamentals

That can be caused by something bigger or you can let it get further out of whack and it can cause something bigger but you know it's like a system

Not an isolated element

And fundamentals when things are not functioning properly

Are probiotics and prebiotics and fiber and enzymes

And it tastes really pleasant

And that is amazing to me because I have taken all kind of powdery mixes and I have largely hated them

They can taste like vanilla where they can taste like chocolate or they can taste like berry or they can taste like any number of other things but they always taste either just straight up nasty or so artificial that they may as well be straight up nasty You know what I'm saying The artificial flavor is not nice or to me than the nasty I mean it's a little bit better but not a lot better and not something I can hang with for any length of time

But this I stirred up in the water and it doesn't like all gelatin eyes or anything so it's just like water with particles that don't have any sort of nastiness about them they're just particles and the powder tastes like pineapple but not like you know you're eating a piece of pineapple and not like some kind of weird fake pineapple flavor but just like you know if you had dried pineapple with a bunch of other dried more or less flavorless things than the pineapple would just get kind of deluded and that's what it tastes like

And I find that enjoyable

And I think it's helping a little bit

But I was thinking about

A crazy scheme

With pineapple chia fiber and chlorella and wheatgrass

And maybe for dinner I have a salad

Or I don't know something

Cleansing

Like I start kind of obsessing and working out a plan where I have you know like five servings a day every you know like two or three hours or something and then for dinner I have a salad or one day I have a salad and one day I have you know I don't know brown rice or something

I suppose kind of a more simplified way of dealing with nourishment so you know don't make meals or whatever just take super foods

And I looked at the macros and I really do think that would work

I might do it I haven't decided

But I'm taking the detox

I also got a new tea

It's green tea I think from Jeju Island with tangerine from Jeju Island it's really nice although I left the tea bags in you know it's a it's a big mug so I use two tea bags probably be better with three tea bags but then you know there's only 20 bags in the box so I left the two tea bags in the whole time I was drinking it and when I got to the bottom like inch that had like cooled off and had soaked for a long time with tea bags in it that was like extra good

So probably if you brood it really strong and then let it cool down and drink it like that that would probably be super delicious

Well when I went to see Kitty this morning he was all doped up

He had a bunch of igu

And it's cone He's got a head cone on which I assume he'd had on non-stop since I took him in Sunday and it was just very depressing

But then this evening when I came in he just looked so dejected and so like

Oh just let me die I don't want to be here

And I cleaned off all the igu this morning but then this evening I'm like do you have a Kleenex or something that I could just maybe clean all the yucky stuff off his cone

And she came and took the cone off and she gave me a paper towel or something with waterless shampoo and I was cleaning off his chin

And my little snowflake he gets chin acne

If you try to feed him out of a plastic dish or if he gets stressed or whatever so is Chin acne was acting up and I don't know whether that was somehow getting on the cone or what but when she took the cone off he also had some kind of yuck all done is chin and neck

And I couldn't get it all off but I got a lot of it off and then I gave him some good screeches on his head and his neck and I'm sure that was itchy from having the cone on there for all that time then he started perking up a little

I got to meet the doctor

He is super nice I like him a lot

He answered my questions I mean in so far as he could the lab cultures aren't back yet

Apparently the reason why they might have to remove the penis if they can't get the blockage unblocked is that apparently cats penises are designed so that they can spray urine in a big cone and the way that that works is the have a very small opening like if you had a hose you would pinch it off to make it go out in all directions and since that's what they need to do to scent mark things they have very narrow opening

Anyway I really really hope he can come home tomorrow

I'm still not feeling very well

But I'm not feeling like I'm going to throw up anymore

Maybe I'm going to have a period or something I don't know

goodnight sweetheart I love you very much 💋

I went to visit Kitty at the hospital today

I went this morning at 9:30

They have visiting hours in the morning in the evening

He seemed like he was doing a lot better he was still a little bit like maybe he was still a little bit sedated

But when I went last night he was very sedated and he had the catheter in and he had the IV in

And they just took me back to the I don't know what they call it it's where they do surgeries but they also have cages that they have the animals in

And he seemed kind of disoriented and whatever and I just you know petted him and told him I loved him and that I wasn't abandoning him cuz I'm worried about him having you know PTSD from when he was a stray

Well this morning they had taken the catheter out and the IV out and they brought him into a room and he was mostly looking for a way to escape

Cuz if you're a prisoner it's your first obligation to escape right

But I'm like kitty you're not a prisoner

You told me you needed help

But I did not have the ability to help you

So I brought you here

These people can help you

So try to be communicative with them the same way that you're communicative with me

And above all

You need to pee

So he sat down next to me and let me pet him and they only let you have about 20 or 30 minutes

More like 20

And they were like well you know if he pees on his own we won't have to put the catheter back in but if he doesn't then we will

Anyway I had an appointment to go for visiting hours this evening at 6:30

I've been feeling really bad today

Like I thought I was going to throw up

Maybe I had food poisoning

I don't know I don't know what's up with me I didn't throw up I tried because I felt like I needed to but I couldn't

But you know well maybe you don't maybe everybody doesn't know this but when I was a kid I was sick a lot and I also got stomach viruses and whatever and there seem to be lots of other things that would make me throw up like if I drink iced tea in the morning although in fairness it was instant powdered iced tea

So I know that when I'm going to throw up I get all this spit in my mouth and there's all these like you know bodily signals

And I really felt like it was going to happen but it didn't

And the doctor who was there on the weekend is not the same as the doctor who's there today and the doctor who's there today was like you know he's peed twice on his own he pees one more time on his own he can go home so I was trying to get myself together cuz I thought you know maybe he was coming home tonight so happy

But it's been raining all day

And the idea of driving in the dark and the rain was a little off-putting

By which I mean I was kind of afraid

But then I checked back in cuz you know I thought if he hasn't peed yet maybe I should meet my appointment for later cuz I don't want to drive up there and then have to turn around and drive back

But his bladder was all distended again and he wasn't peeing so they were going to recatheterize him

And they think another 24 hours

But I thought if they're going to do all that I don't want to go and get them all riled up plus I'm still feeling like I might vomit any second

So I'm just going to go in the morning

I feel kind of bad that I'm not going to see him tonight

But I just don't think it's going to be helpful to him or them to like show up either right before or right after they recatheterize him

They want to sell me some special urinary tract health food but it's got chicken in it

And when he was having the pancreatitis it was like well it's either the chicken or the grain or the fat and we don't know which but I didn't want to do a lot of trial and error where he would continue to have episodes

So I found a food that's extremely low fat that's fish and potato and he hasn't had another pancreatitis episode for like 3 years

I'm not really interested in messing with that

But I did some research

And a lot of vets or some vets say that those foods they're not really all that effective because the thing that they do is try to adjust the pH of the urine but in fact the most important factor is water

So he's just not going to be able to have any dry food anymore he likes to have both but food and dry food but the dry food causes trouble because it's dry and cats the food that they kill and eat in the wild is like 70% water and the canned food is about 70% water with the dry food is like 5% water and I'm kind of surprised it's that much cuz it's you know dry

And he drinks but

If he's eating dry food he's just operating at a deficit I'm moisture deficit

And I'm not going to buy him any food that's got chicken or corn or gluten because I think that those things are all potentially problematical for him

goodnight sweetheart I love you very much 💋

Kitty is in the hospital

he had a blocked bladder

they're like

we are going to catheterize him

if we can't get the catheter in

we might have to do emergency surgery

which apparently involves

cutting off his penis

somehow

the whole day has been surreal

I didn't get much sleep

he didn't have to have surgery

I went for visiting hours

He's draining

They're also giving him fluids to try to flush him out

And they took culture samples to try to find out what the bacteria or infection or whatever

He had a cone around his head

And he kept trying to shake his arm to get the IV out

He was happy to see me

But then he was very distressed that I left

It's been so weird I've been looking for him all over the house today I know he's not here but I just kept looking for him anyway

I love you

I want to stay up

I want to hear if there are more Nevada votes

I gotta get up in the morning though

goodnight sweetheart I love you very much 💋

goodnight sweetheart I love you very much 💋

goodnight sweetheart I love you very much 💋💋💋

goodnight sweetheart I love you very much 💋

goodnight sweetheart I love you very much 

goodnight sweetheart I love you very much 💋

goodnight sweetheart I love you very much 💋

I'm putting together this outfit in my mind

And I want a hat

I love hats

I feel like I look stupid in them

So I never ever wear them

Except sometimes baseball caps

But I'm trying to decide what kind of hat

And it's got this scene

And it's all just you know the outfit

So I'm kind of looking at these bucket hats

And these felt cloches

And I'm looking through you know

eBay

Poshmark

Etsy

Just kind of seeing what's available

And I love hats so I see the next one and I'm like oh that's so beautiful

I don't think I would wear that

Oh that's so beautiful

I don't think I would wear that

And it's ironic that I would now decide that I desperately need a hat

Because I don't know whether it's taking melatonin or using a cream with melatonin or some hormone stuff I don't know but my hair totally does not bother me at all anymore it had receded back and it's grown back in some so that the hairline doesn't look so oval and regular it looks like a natural hairline and I've been using a shampoo that's strengthening it a little so it's not breaking as much maybe I don't know but I look at my hair and I go I like that that's fine

Is it the most you know happy I've ever been with my hair no but it's come back from where it was just something I feel okay about

And I don't know what

I've changed several things

My skin is pretty clear not having a lot of breakouts and large pores shrunk not all the way back to their ideal level but back to something good enough that I can live with it

And I don't know if it's a new oil or a new something I don't know if it's something I'm doing topically or if it's something I'm doing with supplements I just don't know but

That creepy hashtaggy stuff under my eyes that I was the most unhappy with I was like you know wrinkles not so bad but that had that crepey skin I just I could not handle it well it doesn't seem to be doing that anymore

I mean it's I'm not saying I don't have any wrinkles I'm just saying and I'm not saying I don't have any dark circles or noticeable tear troughs or whatever but when I look in the mirror

I am happy with my whole face situation

I wasn't

I hadn't been for a long time

Now suddenly I am

And perhaps that's part of the reason why I'm fantasizing this outfit

why did we wear hats

why did we stop

I imagine this character

I'm sort of thinking of it as me but it's a character

And she's standing on this corner

Just getting into town

She has these wide leg bright orange pants

Kind of a duster

I'm kind of a muted red maybe

A multicolored woolen scarf

Mostly orange and brown

But with some pink and purple too

The shoes and the shirt those were refusing to come together

For the longest time clogs had been the thing

They were kind of getting staticky

Sizzling and popping

And what seemed to be coming into view

Had a lug sole of some sort

but the hat

the hat was gonna nail it all down