justing.net

Week Notes No. 40: Daily Bits

By Justin G. on 25JAN27MON

This week has been a lot, to be honest. I’m glad that work eased up a bit.

Almanac / outlook

Sunny but cool in the first half of the week. Lows in the upper 30s to low- or mid-40s. Highs in the 60s. A little wind, no rain.

Sunrise is around a quarter after 7, and sunset is 20 after 5. The moon is still gibbous, but waning. By the end of the week it will be just a faint crescent and not rising until the last small hours.

Day Bits

1. JAN20MON
   • Surprise Costco trip on this day off. And the regular grocery store.
   • Running is easier when you are caffeinated.
   • I solved the problem of the Apple iPhone Camera Control button: just turn off all the whiz bang features and use it as a button. Now I can be a bit more delicate with it, which I thought was the point. Snapshots gon’ be snappin’ (see above).
   • So sunny today after unending fog yesterday.
   • An evening of reading Theft by Finding & City of Saints and Madmen.
2. JAN21TUE
   • Our friend L stopped by. M, our dog, loves it when we have guests. Especially surprise guests. I mean, how would a dog know if you’re going to have guests? Well this wasn’t one of those times. She got so excited she zoomed around and hurt her own ankle. That is pretty excited. She’s fine, just needed a few minutes to recover from her excitement.
   • “Bro, do you even lift?” amount of lifting.
3. JAN22WED
   • I dreamt about some successful music venue. In England. I was there, in the sound booth. I was helping for some unfathomable dream reason. How do they determine these things, anyway?
   • I dreamed about a guest house up the hill from the main house. There were stars, I think, and a field, and forest. We were leaving at the end, but we never left. It’s a jumble, honestly.
   • I noticed that the feral fruit trees¹ in the neighborhood are blooming (see above). That’s the thing about California (even the middle/northern part), it has not really got any dependable seasons. It’s only liminaly seasonable, or has a kind of seasonal liminality. Anyway, colder-ish this week, but still sunny and apparently warm enough to convince the implacable trees that it is spring time.
4. JAN23THU
   • Haircut day. They were playing classics,² and heavy on the Nirvana. I listened to some more Nirvana on the way home.
   • This afternoon it is so beautifully warm and sunny, like a brief moment of late spring.
5. JAN24FRI
   • Steady as she goes on the running. You know, I noticed that the Ring doorbell on one house would chime every time after weeks of running by. Last week I started flashing a peace sign, and this week it stopped. Weird.
   • B and I had a rollicking good time during our usual catch up sesh.
   • They cannot take away the comets.³
   • When did the kitchen get to be a mess? And the dining room?
6. JAN25SAT
   • Today I made a quite intentional decision to stay off the internet for the most part. It worked and it wasn’t that hard honestly. I hope I can do it again tomorrow.
     • It was only after this day off that I read Craig’s commentary on it that I had opened in a tab a few days earlier. And no, previous mentions (I’ve been reading him for quite a while now) didn’t really penetrate before like they do right now.
   • Chores, cooking, reading (paper based media).
   • I do believe, upon further reflection, that I did feel one single rain drop, a small one, when I was walking the dog in the evening. My very first reaction was that, but then I felt no more, and so I changed my mind. Maybe it was just a tiny solitary drop of spit. But the weatherman said that there might be rain and it probably didn’t get to the ground even though it showed up on the radar. So, it was a last lone survivor, almost making it to land.
7. JAN26SUN
   • This morning while out walking the dog we saw the egret. I say the because one theory I heard is that there is only one egret in all the world and he is a thief.⁴ I do not know what it is this thieving bird steals, but I’m sure it’s whatever it can get its grubby little beak on.
   • I was a giant nerd and took a paper notebook with me instead of my phone on that walk with the egret. Part of my effort to use my phone less. But I realized something out there. My notebook doesn’t really take very good pictures. Or pictures of any sort, actually. So I bring my phone with me and only use it for pictures. And the paper notebook. And a pencil.
   • Shady collards have been hand delivered to our door by a friend.

Outside Events

Like I said, this week was a lot.

• Ugh. Inauguration day. I won’t even link to anything about it. We’re having a media blackout. Well, the ‘Sig Heil’ penetrated our defenses. Ugh.
• TikTok ban is delayed.
• The pardons.
• A freeze upon the NIH and others. Additional details from Your Local Epidemiologist.
• Executive orders.
• There was a lot of Executive Branch stuff. Brutal.

Pace yourselves, people.

To Reply: Email me about your days.