Running success, a big meeting at work, and then I get the stomach flu.
Cooler this week, morning lows dropping into the upper 40s by the end of the week. Daytime highs in the low 70s or upper 60s. The return of morning clouds (marine layer) and afternoon sun. Sunrise around a quarter after seven, and sunset is half past six; the number of sunlit hours is rapidly falling toward eleven. The full moon on Thursday means bright nights. Fall is coming.
The HVAC man is here.
Baking bread. I should do this more. There are too many good kinds that I like, and I don’t bake them frequently enough. I can’t get deep enough into the recipes at my current rate, so I consider their maxima of quality are still unfound; they are unfinished puzzles. Work on some standards and just give them away. Well, it’s an unsolved problem.
In the office, but boy was it hard to get here; my morning was suddenly packed with meetings. The afternoon is a Team fall festival.
Big meeting at work. Progress is made, but I’m not sure that the leads were satisfied. We wouldn’t be here without the deadline, and we won’t find the next steps without their input either. In that sense it is success. I am not sure if there are other forms of success too, or failures.
Damn it’s the weekend. What a week.
Good conversation with B. I should take notes. We talk about current events (election), Empty lots, and random facts chitons (pronounced kite-ons) etc.
Throughout the day I also keep up a very focused chat with J about belief and guessing the motivations of others. We solve nothing, but many thoughts are had.
Increasingly not feeling great in the stomach area. Before I succumb to the sickness, I complete the west half of my survey of the Coyote-Alamitos canal. There is less graffiti than I expected. Erosion is consistent with the spring. A weak La Niña this winter means that precipitation could go either way. Check back after the rain door closes.
Lots of reading of The Natural History of Empty Lots after I am confined the couch with fatigue, aches, and cramps.
I am spending all day feeling weak and unwell. It started a bit on Friday, but by yesterday it went from “this isn’t great” to “why would anyone even eat food.” Hopefully I’m better on Monday. I have the stomach flu. I hope it is short.
I finish The Natural History of Empty Lots; I enjoyed it. See notes below. More later.
Running success; all three planned runs occurred. I should keep this up, it is easier every time.
Whitechapel, relatively cozy police procedural. There is a bit more TV gore than I generally appreciate. Blitzed through about half of it after achieving YT burnout being couchbound on Sunday.
Martijn 125 and 126. What’s with these barefooted helpers. Excited to see what happens with the second cabin. As a friend said: “are we just watching this guy do chores?” Um, yes?
Grab Bag: Monster Mothership is 3 hrs of field recording and video(?) of a thunderstorm in the midwest. What I appreciate about this one is the mostly dark screen. Jelly Cam is a classic. A drive across the Diablo range is about some bay area bioregionalism. So SFBA it’s kinda painful, but interesting. Ambient walk at Point Reyes. The Bark Europa voyages home.
Food: Lan Lam teaches sandwiches; I must practice. MZK: Oil and Garlic Pasta, Carbonara. London style pizza with Gozney. Butter: whip it and whip it some more. Asian chicken noodle soup. Note, I didn’t make these things, they are inputs.
Trailers: The magnificent life of Marcel Pagnol, from the director of Triplets of Belleville; looking forward to it. Witch Hat Atelier; I don’t know what this is but am curious.
Panic World interviews Caroline Calloway. It’s very long, discusses some internet history which is super interesting, and then turns specifically to the guest and how the internet and the people on it have changed. I learned two things. First, the haters on the internet, they really would rather talk about themselves. Maybe they see these other people doing things and it makes them jealous that other people are talking about them instead? That probably is an over simplification. Second, dealing with people at scale has different rules. You cannot treat them like an individual, that’s not how they are thinking about what you’ve done, what you’ve just gone viral for. Third, nine out of ten people who are doing really weird attention seeking behaviors online are probably in an abusive/exploitive situation. Things that people are doing that seem really out there and not normal, they are probably doing it because they are in some sort of danger: drug addiction, exploitive partner (business or otherwise), debt, etc.
State Azure Artemis Station. Finished this 3 hour piece. It’s fine, might play it again sometime.
The Natural History of Empty Lots It turned out to be a better contrast to Nexus than I thought Ancillary Justice was. Empty Lots is present tense, contextualizing, and oriented toward the near future. And, of course, Nexus is relevant to present times. Both books were published in September 2024, I think it might be the first time I’ve ever read such contemporary work. I kinda like it. Empty Lots is a description of our cultural machinery as surplus generator, resource extractor, and insulator from the natural world. It’s more than that, because it resolves how that description, while truthful, is inaccurate in some important ways. The wild is there if you look for it. The book is self-aware too, noting the author’s own unintentional participation in the damaging nature. Lots of good phrases, thought provoking points, and historical references. Idiosyncratic, lacking foot/end-notes, and kind of unclear sometimes what the biases, omissions, or selections were. However, I think it was worth my time.
Character / Week Notes Key has the decoder ring for the people mentioned.
Posted: in Notes.
Other categories: week notes.
Back references: none.
Tags that connect: [[Ancillary Justice]] What I'm up to this week, What I'm up to this week; [[bread]] Week Notes No. 18, New Now Update, Bi-Week Notes No. 14, Inaugural Week Notes; [[Nexus]] Week Notes No. 25, What I'm up to this week, What I'm up to this week, What I'm doing Now; [[running]] Week Notes No. 29, Week Notes No. 28, Week Notes No. 27, Week Notes No. 25, What I'm up to this week, Week Notes No. 24, Week Notes No. 23, Week Notes 22, Week Notes 21, Week Notes No. 20.
Tags only on this post: Christopher Brown, fall festival, flu, hvac, La Nina, The Natural History of Empty Lots.