Life updates

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My return to work has taken up most of my brain and energy and time for the past three weeks, but I’m gradually getting back to a state of being able to do and think about other stuff too.

Some assorted updates:

  • I joined the Alphabet Workers Union. I haven’t done anything as a union member yet, but hoping to get more involved over time.
  • My brother Jay brought me an amazing trove of old family letters, so I’m embarking on a new phase of my family-history digitizing project. More on that soon. I need to decide how often to post the letters; there are about 150 of them, covering 15+ years.
  • I acquired a new oven, after several months of my old one being unusable due to the control-panel display not working.
  • I ordered a new dishwasher; in theory, it should show up in two or three weeks.
  • I’ve been playing a lot of little-thought-required iOS puzzle games, due to lack of brain for much of anything else outside work.
  • Jay and Holly gave me their lovely huge bookcase with glass-fronted doors and glass shelves and built-in lights, which now takes up one whole wall of my room. The rest of my room is now even more cluttered and unnavigable than before, because I shoved a lot of stuff around to make things fit (am slowly working on clearing out space), but the bookcase is gorgeous and it makes for a much nicer video-call background than my bed does. Thanks to J and H for giving it to me and moving it, and to Kam for placing and assembling it with me and earthquake-safetyizing it. I may post photos eventually.
  • In December, Mary Anne and I started seeing a couples counselor (after months of looking, we finally found someone who’s licensed in both California and Illinois), and I separately started seeing a different talk therapist on my own. I think both are helping. My therapist has introduced me to several new-to-me paradigms and tools, which I hope to post about sooner or later.
  • I’m not leaving the house much. I may start to do so more as omicron recedes and as I get more settled back into work; we’ll see.
  • I’m not getting enough exercise, but am trying to get back in the habit of walking on the elliptical regularly. I would like to get back in the habit of playing Beat Saber, which is one of the few forms of exercise that I actively enjoy, but I’ve been oddly resistant to doing VR stuff in the past few months.
  • I continue to practice piano nearly every day—one of the very few self-improvement things I’ve ever done that I haven’t had a hard time keeping going at. Not sure why. Partly just because I really like it.
  • I think I mentioned here, at some point, that I bought a guitar? I’ve been intermittently practicing the basics of that, though not as often as I intend to.
  • After a burst of Duolingo activity for a while, I’m back to very intermittent. But at least I haven’t dropped it entirely, the way I usually do after a period of activity there.
  • The latest episode of the Mohanraj and Rosenbaum Are Humans podcast is a 90-minute-long discussion about revisions and workshopping, with me as a guest. Recorded October 25, 2020, a bit over a year ago, or about 80 years ago in pandemic years. Labeled as part 1, so I’m assuming there’ll be a part 2 later, but I don’t remember clearly.
  • In the past couple weeks, I haven’t done any of the volunteer work I signed up for with WisCon and the Otherwise Award, but I’m hoping to make progress on both of those this weekend.
  • My reading-unread-books project continues, but very slowly. I’m tracking numbers in a spreadsheet now, and I’m still on track to finish in mid- to late-2025, but I feel like forward motion has slowed to a crawl. Possibly in part because I’m now on my third nonfiction book this month; in general, nonfiction books and I don’t tend to get along all that well, and I tend to read them slowly if at all.
  • Have watched a bunch of interesting movies and TV shows in the past couple months, but haven’t managed to post anything about most of them. Hoping to do that soon too.
  • Still not sleeping well, due to new early-for-me morning meeting schedule, but trying to get to sleep earlier and wake up earlier in general. (No advice, please.)

…I finished writing that last item in the late morning this morning, and promptly fell asleep for a couple of hours. Oh, well, probably good for me. Anyway, I think I’ll take that as a sign that it’s time to finish and post this, and move on to other tasks.

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