The Cracked Mug v 2.0

[erikavonkaiser]

Weekend! I'm on it now! Yay!

Work was pretty busy (I am one scene away from my minimum for the entire month and it is, the fifth) and had some slight terrors --

  Hidden text. You are not a member of the groups to which this text is available

-- but was otherwise survivable. Today is definitely going to be a rest day; right now I'm dooting around (I think I'll work on a drawing, actually) and in a bit I'll get up to go ahead and exercise, then after that I have to zoom over to a coworker's apartment to check on her cats while she's out of town. After that I'm coming back home and fully engaging slug mode, which I think will involve some Elden Ring or more of that Homestead Arcana game until it's D&D time.

I guess that's it for now! I feel like I had more to say, but now I can't think of whatever those things were, so lemme work on my blorbo picture until it's time to exercise and do the things.

[erikavonkaiser]

I am taking a proper actual vacation at the end of next month and am pretty excited about it! I took off some time and went ahead and booked an AirBnB in Minneapolis to go to Pride with my friends Masque and Val. I'm bringing Sophie (and Baby Dog!) with me, and my friend Greggo is gonna try to see if he can be in the area during that time as well. It'll be fun! Exhausting, probably, but in the good kind of way. This is also reminding me I need to finalize details on a training thing I'm going to in July, although that's work-related. bluhhhhh planning and preparation bluhhhhhhhh

Anyways, it's my Monday equivalent (boo) but the weather is nice (yay) so I'm going to go run in it before it turns into gross storms, which is what it will do tonight through tomorrow (boo).

[erikavonkaiser]

I was considering moving into another apartment within my same building because there's one currently available that has a balcony and a more reasonable kitchen, but they charge a dumb and exorbitant fee for doing it outside of your lease (even though it's the same building!) and the leasing agent I asked about it was kind of a douchebag so I decided to just wait until next year. I do think I want to move apartments to a slightly bigger one if I'm able, but until then I'll just make my space more efficient and build up my savings.

Also I have been getting my once-in-a-blue-moon urge to play Minecraft and yesterday got a world w/ texture packs ready and made a lil Rex:

5-8-2023_1-07-49_PM-qhosrgxw2.png

I'm playing on console because I find it more comfortable, and also because if I were on PC I would want to really intricately customize my world and experience and to be honest I never maintain an interest in Minecraft long enough to be worth it. Inevitably when I get the urge to play I doot around until I have a safe little house and some sheep or whatever and then I'm good! I love survival and crafting games but I do require some overall quests/goals or I putter out, which is what always happens to me in Minecraft.

Okay, I have a few projects to do this morning (in the name of re: making my space more efficient) and then still need to exercise before work, so let me go do the things. It's my Wednesday equivalent, so we're gettin' there.

[erikavonkaiser]

I am really not feeling capitalism these past few days, but I gotta, so. Put a smile on and all that! It'll help that today and tomorrow (my Thurs/Fri equivalents) have the rotation of people that is quieter. Yesterday at work I got really overstimulated from everyone shouting and carrying on and my brain never really fully righted itself after that.

But! I did clean out my bookshelf before work yesterday, which I was more overdue for than I realized. I somehow ended up with duplicates of Crime & Punishment and House of the Scorpion?? I also went ahead and got rid of some books I've had kicking around since a teen but that aren't super valuable to me (Flowers for Algernon, 1984, a few others I've already forgotten). For many years my rule has been that I can own as many books as fit neatly in my bookshelf, and since I've been reading more lately I've got some new ones in rotation and it was time to purge. I took some to the little free library in my neighborhood and set the others aside to either donate somewhere or take to the used bookstore in Ravenswood, haven't decided yet.

My other organization/Spring Cleaning projects are on hold until I get in a delivery either tonight or tomorrow; I got a little shelf thing to go in my bathroom so I can better store my towels, which are currently crammed underneath the sink. Doing that starts a chain reaction of being able to move things into other places, so I think I'll just save that whole task for the weekend when I can have myself a whiskey and play some tunes and be zen about it.

Okay, I'm gonna tidy up and prep my lunch for work and then I think I'm gonna walk Baby Dog to the park and pick a bunch of dandelions! I'm gonna try to make dandelion jelly this weekend and I think the best route will be to pick them and rinse them off today, steep them tomorrow (they have to steep like tea for about 24 hours), then attempt the jelly/canning process on my Saturday equivalent. We'll see how it goes! I've never canned anything on my own before.

In any case, I'm happy and I'm exercised and I'm occupied, I just want the dadgum work week to be over with already so I can continue to do and be those things.

[erikavonkaiser]

Oh but speaking of reading more, I did finish this at work last night:

Cowboy Lingo by Ramon F. Adams
Five cowboys

I grabbed this mostly as a storytelling reference and it was good for that! It's not a dictionary style, which I'm glad for (those tend to be kitschy and not super accurate, in my experience), and was split up into different sections to go into detail about how those things were involved in a cowboy's day-to-day and the words/phrases they used to talk about those things. I skimmed some sections that weren't as interesting to me but I actually marked the cattle brand section and a few others to reference if I need 'em!

#books2023

[erikavonkaiser]

Weekend!

Today is 100% my hermit recharge day; I walked on my walking treadmill while catching up on YouTubes (new Ann Reardon, new Evan & Katelyn) and am maybe halfway done with chores/projects (I got a head start by putting together that shelf yesterday before work). I also, uh, went feral on Minecraft and actually did end up switching to PC, mostly out of frustration with how limiting the console interface is.

I am actually super pleased with the results and am having a blast, I set up some shaders to make the game look really pretty but still like Minecraft! I kinda approached it like I do Skyrim mods, which is I want the core experience and aesthetic of the game to feel intact, but improved (to my taste, anyway).

image.png

image (1).png

Anyway, lemme take a break to do some more chore stuff (gonna work on my dandelion jelly) and then I'll probably keep the pattern of chores/touch grass intermixed with video games the rest of the day. I had a long week, and I don't want to think.

[erikavonkaiser]

We'll see how it goes! I've never canned anything on my own before.

I did the thing!! I have dandelion jelly from dandelions I picked, that I then canned myself!

PXL_20230512_204358808.jpg

(that picture was taken before the water bath canning which is why the lid looks loose)

I ended up with four jellies and after letting them cool/rest overnight, I tested the seals this morning and everything is intact! I set aside a jar for Sophie, one for Masque and Val, one for a coworker, and the last one I'll keep. It was a fun project! I would definitely do it again. (@mek, @Dax Webster, @KnightOfCups, lemme know if you want jelly.)

At some point I'd like to upgrade to more difficult canning (water bath canning jams/jellies is kind of the starter level, since it's hard to fuck up and easy to keep sterile because it gets the absolute shit boiled out of it), but I'll definitely ease into that over time.

  Hidden text. You are not a member of the groups to which this text is available

I'm also more or less caught up on projects, although I decided to put off getting a haircut and dealing with donations until next weekend. Today I'm doing meal prep, tidying up, exercising, and continuing to play Minecraft because it's making my brain go brr at the moment. Oh, and D&D tonight! Hecko yeah!

[erikavonkaiser]

Vampire Hunter D Volume 4: Tale of the Dead Town by Hideyuki Kikuchi
Four stars

This one is genuinely good! If only because the damsel-in-distress, for once and finally, is not subject to sexual abuse. It's a bit sad the bar is that low, but, well. Here we find ourselves. The concept of the town is interesting, the plot has some nice pacing and set-pieces, the twists and turns work well. I liked it!

There's also a very good moment between D and the damsel-in-distress; due to the nature of the books and who D is, people (regardless of gender, although sometimes you can feel the writer's homophobia bleeding through on that) are enamored with him. Some of this is because he is The Protagonist, but most of it is because he is a dhampir and his vampiric nature kind of draws people to him like an angler fish. The damsel-in-distress for this one is quite young, maybe sixteen, and D saves her from being radiation poisoned. Her injuries leave her deaf and mute and she develops an enormous crush on D, who largely ignores her and only communicates with her (via a writing pad) for plot-related reasons. She's hurt that he ignores her, but then at one point he gives her a weapon and asks her to help him and she's like oh,

I don't need a danger twink to pay attention to me, I need to protect myself

And D had kinda picked up on that, and obviously also was not romantically or sexually interested in this literal child in the first place, so it was just kind of a nice moment of like hey, kid, I see you, I have to be the grown-up here and help you appropriately, now go do a murder

MV5BOWFkNTcxN2MtNDA1YS00YzllLWJiMTAtZm.jpg

Love this weirdo

#books2023

[Fetian]

I would love to try dandelion jelly!

[Fetian]

I was talking about it with Sophie and I think some of my recent interest in homesteading-type projects (that I've been jokingly calling my Crunchy Lesbian Hours) is kind of connecting with my upbringing now that I'm mentally healthy enough to do so; my grandmother taught me how to can, although I'd never done it on my own, and it hurts to know that I no longer have access to her as a person (is she even alive still?), let alone to her advice, her canning supplies, her recipes, etc. It's weird to lose your entire, like ... roots and ancestry, and I've found myself embracing my inner Appalachian more as I'm comfortable to kind of reclaim that.

  Hidden text. You are not a member of the groups to which this text is available

Also that D sounds interesting and I might have to pick it up and give it a shot myself!